Sands of time
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Raito has been dead for 2563 years and as a former owner of a death note has been forced to remain on Earth until he has saved as many lives as he took away. Warning: Spoilers
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This idea came to me in another fanfic I wrote actually. It's a parody but it would make a lot of sense to make a more interesting longer and deeper version of the same idea and probably with a better ending. So this will probably be a little weird as a warning but keep through at least the first chapter. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note **

**Warning: Spoilers **

Rain poured from the heavens onto the streets like it always did on the second of November on the first year of Kira's existence. The downpour would not cease for at least another two hours and twenty-two seconds but that didn't worry Raito. He had fared worse than rain before.

Soaked in his long coat and boots he probably looked like some crazed drug dealer. Someone he would have killed in his younger days for deriving the world of its morale (As if this world could get any worse). It wasn't until much later that he figured out that justice like everything was just an illusion concocted by desperate humans searching for their meaning. How pointless.

Two headlights appeared through the rain. He looked up and smirked grimly, his ride was here. It only took convincing the fool to let him up that worried him. The truck pulled to a stop by Raito and the door opened. Grateful to get out of sight he hopped in and looked at the driver.

"Hey Raito, thought you might be late this time!" Earl hadn't changed at all. Still the same beer gut and five-a-clock shadow adorned his figure, not to mention the plaid shirt and overalls he adored so much. It made Raito sick every time he saw it.

"I'm never late."

"Of course you aren't Raito."

The man sighed and tapped the steering wheel.

"So how you going to get up this time?"

He was ready for this, this time he wouldn't fail. Funny when he was human everything had come so easy for him; it was only now that things were hard.

"I did Sayu's homework for her, I cooked dinner for my mother every night, and I did Light's studies for him, not to mention Sochiro's paperwork." Raito held up his hands and closed his eyes trying to feel the warmth he missed so much.

"Raito I know you want up and I'm saying this as a friend not as an angry-road-rage-hick-from-some-Mississippi-hovel. All that is paperwork, it's useless and time wasting! You did that before you wanted up so badly, and besides as a man of action you should understand that." The truck driver stared ahead at the empty road with a sorrow filled expression. Raito didn't need that kind of sentimental crap anymore.

"But you and I know very well that I can't just walk up and say 'Hello you're going to die in three seconds, you might want to go to a hospital before you croak.' I can't interfere with mortal life spans so how can I do anything but 'paper work'? Besides you never know one of those meals could have been the death of us all."

Raito stared at the man waiting for an answer to the problem that had troubled him for centuries. The man sighed again and rubbed what was left of his hair.

"That's the thing; you have to want it so bad that you can overcome the obstacles."

"You make it sound so easy." Raito glared at the older man apathetically. It would be impossible and even he couldn't achieve what was beyond logic. He'd known that even when he was playing 'God' for entertainment.

"Have you noticed how you're the only one left? Every one else gave up! You have been here for what now three-thousand years?"

"Two thousand five hundred sixty three years in counting."

"Right, well that's a real long time partner and you still haven't lost it. Nobody in this situation has ever made it, sorry bud but it's the truth." The man smiled weakly at Raito.

So this was his punishment for trying to be 'god of the new world'. He had always known that there would be something, some form of justice on God's behalf. But even with all his genius he had never believed in something after death, and now he was stuck.

"So I'm doomed then? No matter, your opinion's been flawed before. I will break this curse, just watch." If the man was offended he didn't show it.

The man grinned and gave a hearty chuckle at Raito's statement.

"That's what I like about you Raito! You never give up even when the rest of the world has! You know what; I think you might be somewhat optimistic." He laughed again.

Raito was immediately reminded of the arrogant fool he had once been, he had been called an optimist then too. So he still did have something in common with the arrogant brat…

"In my situation you have to be." responded Raito darkly, turning his head to glare at the empty bridge.

Earl took a can of beer from the cup holder and held it up to Raito. He motioned it off with disgust.

"Well I suppose that's all Earl, I'll see you in ten years. Next time will be it, you watch." He grabbed the door handle but stopped when he heard the driver stop him.

"No one I've ever seen has gotten this far, no body and I've seen a lot of people. I'm going to tell you something because I think even someone like you deserves to get to the tourist attraction they call heaven."

Raito let go of the handle and turned towards Earl with a vacant expression, hope was for those who still believed in miracles.

"I'm listening."

"The reason you're stuck here is not your bad deeds or whatever you think it is." Earl stated with authority that only a truck driving hick can muster.

"It's because the big man doesn't like you and you don't like him, part of the reason you picked up the damn notebook in the first place." Nothing he didn't know beforehand.

"Get to the point Earl."

"Anyways so he's given you an impossible task that you'll never succeed in no matter how hard you try."

"Obviously." Stated Raito sarcastically a little bored of being lectured by a truck driver.

"But there is a loop hole! If you can get someone from your past life time to recognize you and accept you for what you've become then poof you're good as gold!" Earl smiled at Raito.

"So basically someone has to fall in love with me despite the fact that I've been dead far longer than they've been living. Not only that but it has to be someone I knew. Impossible."

Earl racked his brains for anyone who would be a likely candidate, "What about that Mesa girl or whatever, she loved you didn't she?"

"Blind devotion isn't love; if it was I could just adopt a puppy." Earl sighed.

"Well I gave you another option; you'll need it before you know before you finally lose it. See you in a few years I suppose."

Earl gave a small wave then turned on some country tune. Raito jumped out of the car before it reached the chorus. Earl slowly drove out of sight and left him in the middle of the street staring at his one get away from the hell-hole people call Earth.

Slowly he walked towards the sidewalk and the house of his confinement dreading the next round of silence that awaited him. Love? Sounded too corny for the being that had condemned him to eternal solitude. Who would love him anyways, even he didn't love himself the way he used to.

"Why am I always surrounded by idiots?!" The air around him remained silent as always.

He sighed and dragged himself into the house.

**Author's note: That probably made no sense right now but most of it get's explained later. I wrote half of this chapter while listening to Billy Joel's 'She's always a woman'. **

**Reviews are highly appreciated and needed. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: This is writing far easier than I had expected and seems like a fun fic to write. Thanks to anyone who has read or reviewed you guys kick butt. By the way does Raito seem too OOC to anyone? **

**Oh and here's a little tid bit to help you not be confused Raito is different from Light: **

**Light Yagami: A bored teenage genius who picks up a mysterious notebook and decides to fight evil by killing criminals**

**Raito: A cursed spirit who is forced to follow and watch the human counterpart of himself. In order to save himself (and his sanity) he has to save as many people as he killed or have someone recognize him and accept him for what he has become. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note**

Raito stared at the wall in his old house re-memorizing the pattern with precision. A pencil scratching against paper was his background noise along with the boy who made it. Despite what people said Light Yagami was far from perfect, in fact he was problem was one of the most flawed people he had ever seen. He was a social misfit who spent his time killing people in his suicide diary, what had he seen in that? And what good had it done him anyway, it had gotten him cursed.

The curse which bound him to Earth indefinitely, which forced him to watch his life through an observer's eyes. To see himself for what he truly was, an idealistic fool who talked and walked a little too big for his fancy shoes.

His former self laughed with delight as he struck down criminals with a vengeance unknowingly sentencing a future version of him to an eternity of cold wandering. He had been so idealistic to a point of fault but his pride hadn't let him see what really happened, even at the end.

"See Ryuk, I'm already changing the world look at all the websites that have popped up about Kira the savior!" Did websites save him from the punishment he had to endure? Let's see no, it was times like this that he wanted to shake some sense into the idiot.

It had been ten days eleven hours and thirty six minutes since Earl had driven off. His only hope lied in the hands of a drunken truck driver; his associates had gone down hill from his human life. Or at least that's what he would have said if he was still the charming and insightful prick that he spent his days criticizing.

The traditional way to leave Earth was to save as many lives as he had taken away. The only problem was that he had killed thousands of people and he couldn't tamper with human life openly. Making it near impossible to do, over the course of two thousand five hundred sixty three years he had only managed to save two lives. All had been due to him killing Rem before she killed off L and Watari. Of course his human counterpart had wasted no time in using his nifty watch when Rem failed. Thank god for Rolex.

"Ryuk I'm changing the world one day at a time! Pretty soon there will be no criminals left and this world will be a utopia."

Sometimes he had been optimistic to the point of sheer idiocy, how had he looked down on Matsuda when he had been spouting this garbage?

This was one of the times when he wanted to hit his head against a wall to just be able to do something. True this was nothing compared to confinement but it still left Raito with a bitter taste in his mouth.

It was only when the human finally fell asleep that he could do anything to keep himself entertained. And even that got dull after the first couple hundred years, you can only watch the 'sixth sense' so many times before it gets dull.

He had tried to strike up conversations with Ryuk and Rem every couple decades but they just ignored him and left him to believe that although they were not human they still could not sense his presence. (Another reason to break the bonds which tied him to the teenage-heart-throb)

Standing up and stretching he reviewed his options. Save twenty thousand four hundred and seventy six stupid ignorant humans or suffer through some cliché romance type scenarios with someone from his past life.

"Hyuk hyuk." God that laugh still irritated the hell out of him even after two thousand five hundred sixty three years.

"No worries I'll be out of this place soon enough." just as soon as he became the invisible Mother Theresa.

**Author's note: Gad I babbled a lot in this chapter. This is basically to fill the readers in on what is going on for Raito at the moment. And yes I know he's OOC but that's what happens after about three thousand years of doing squat. **

**P.S. I'm only updating right now because I have no idea when I will be able to start writing again. So I probably won't update this fast EVER again. **

**Reviews are appreciated. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Here's chapter three typed up and ready to go. Ha I've had trouble seeing where to start the actual story but I think starting it when L shows up would be best. Technically I could have babbled for three months worth of writing time but I think you guys get the point; Raito is bored out of his mind. Thanks to readers and reviewers I love you all! **

**I was listening to 'Getting to know you' from the King and I. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note no matter how much I want to. **

Autumn dragged into winter and winter into spring. Raye Pember had been successfully killed and Naomi had been depressed enough to go commit suicide. (Well Light had done his pushing but she probably would have jumped anyways) That was Raito's reasoning anyways. It wasn't long until L decided that Light was too damn clever and would have to be confronted face to face. Cameras and bugs can only get you so far.

That's why Light practically had a panic attack when the detective showed up at his college and told him he was L. It was almost embarrassing to see him freak out over the most pointless of pointless events, who cared if some weird insomniac said he was L? Honestly the kid would die if he didn't get exactly the right brand of coffee in the morning. But that was life for you, no wonder he had only lived to the age of twenty three.

Raito would have loved to say that he didn't care what the hell Light did in his free time. It wasn't his problem that the idiot had a god complex (well not _his _problem) and it definitely wasn't his issue if he had a little too much fun killing people. But it was that damn curse that kept him on his toes; it seemed a little too odd to pit someone against themselves in a battle of wills. God had a bizarre sense of humor when it came to Raito's life.

With dull interest he looked around the sunny court yard for someone in immediate danger of dying. But today was an unlucky day and yet again there was nothing he could do without harming himself in the process. Call it selfish but Raito had a desire not to cause himself harm purposely, he'd rather laugh at someone else's pain than his own. Selfishness was a virtue not often appreciated.

Sighing he turned back to the human he was most interested in. Dark hair moved in front of the man's face as he asked Light personal questions on their way to the tennis courts. Raito smirked, the detective hadn't changed at all. It was nice to know that someone out there was even worse at social skills than himself. (His only friend was a hick from Mississippi how good at conversing could he be?)

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If L had any idea that a spiritual being was standing right behind him he didn't show it. He told Light that he was Kira (what a great move that had been) and that he wanted to play tennis with him. How does one go from 'I am L!' to 'Let's play tennis!' Raito still had no idea what went on in that head of his.

"I realize you challenged me to a game of tennis, but did you realize how good I was?" No Light, we had no idea that you think you're a god. Raito just rolled his eyes and waited for the damn game to be over.

The tennis game could be considered the best of its kind by even the most dedicated fan but there was a reason behind Light and Raito's quitting the game. It was stupid, who wants to watch two people run back and forth in order to hit a ball? Where was the point damn it?

"I am pretty good myself Yagami-kun, I was British champion for five years." L smirked when he caught Light stiffen in the corner of his eye. Raito shifted in his black overcoat mentally wishing to be struck by lightning rather than having to watch _another _damn tennis game.

"So then you're British?" It would be the biggest dunce in the world who didn't notice the sickeningly innocent interest in the man's native country. Raito shuddered at the thought that he had once thought he sounded innocent of murdering thousands of people. Who the hell would fall for a trick like that?!

"I lived in England for five years, but you won't find anything out from that." Light stopped in his tracks and his eye literally twitched, just slightly you would miss it if you hadn't been watching carefully.

The two college students walked onto the empty tennis court and set up to play. Raito turned to watch the cherry trees in full bloom the pink blossoms waving in the slight breeze. Dark eyes scanning the square for anyone in danger of their life he noticed Takada walking past… with another boy friend. Had she gotten Light on the rebound? Well, that was depressing.

Raito turned away from the former flame and back to the game.

L bounced the ball on the ground twice then threw it up in the air and hurled it at Light's face. Raito applauded silently, too bad Light had ducked. That was one of the few good things about L; he made no effort to try to suck up to the prissy prima donna. Of course then there was all the other crap that came with being associated with L, like his love of chains and cameras.

So engrossed in his musings Raito failed to notice the ball in his hand until he had reflexively caught it before it hit his face. _'Oh shit' _

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L dropped his racket with a clang. He eyes grew wide and his face paled. It had been more of a feeling than an actual sound; an intense cold had entered the court then a cry of pain. L's head whipped towards the sound and in the corner was a man leaning against the chain link gripping his hand with a white knuckled intensity and blood dripping from his injured hand onto the ball they had been playing with only two seconds ago.

"Hello there, not very talkative eh?" The man chuckled horsely and attempted to stand only to fail and lean back against the fence with a hiss. Normally L would have been at his side in moments but something about him felt off. It was as if he was paralyzed by an internal warning not to go near the man.

The man had dark hair a shade or two lighter than L's jet-black and unnaturally dark eyes. He was wearing an obsidian outfit that made it look as if he walked off of a movie set and not a college tennis court. Over-all it would have been impossible to miss him, it just didn't add up how the best detective in the world could have missed someone so glaringly conspicuous.

Light walked slowly up beside him and came to stare at the stranger. He looked at L once then he walked over to the man. As Light approached the man appeared to… smirk up at him.

"How long were you standing there?" The man looked from side to side then glanced up.

"I honestly can't remember, that death orb you call a tennis ball must have tampered with my memory." The man gritted his teeth and grabbed his side leaving his hand which was now bleeding profusely to clutch the new injury. Light's eyes narrowed.

"You caught the tennis ball." The man blinked and rubbed his right hand against his pant leg. Light stared at the hand then drew back.

"See that's my memory for you, I told you it was god awful." That's when L noticed the blood pouring out of the man's hand and the other wounds. The man didn't seem to notice and even raised his hand quickly causing crimson droplets to fall on Light's shirt.

"Yagami-kun I think it would be best to post pone our game and take this man to the hospital." Light nodded slowly clearly in shock. The man looked down at his right hand in disgust.

"Oh shit, is it bleeding?" Light nodded again. L gaped. The man looked around himself quickly then to Light's watch. The man muttered a curse.

"Hmmm better call 911 before I really start gushing." The man laughed at Light's horror struck expression. "If you think this is bad you should have seen D-day."

When Light made no move to reach for his cell phone the man reached in his pocket for him and pulled out a slim razor. Light backed up to join L in staring at the strange figure. The man's eyes glowed with a strange otherworldly quality that he had sworn he had seen somewhere before…

"You could have been slightly quicker on the uptake there hot-stuff. I could die from my hand spasm!" He poked Light's chest with a crimson finger. Pressing the appropriate number the man took a deep breath and gritted his teeth again.

"Hello, my hand has just exploded." There was a murmur of voices on the other line.

"Yes this is a real emergency and I am not joking." The man looked visibly frustrated. He pulled his bleeding hand through his hair. The crimson streaks in the man's hair naturally offset the man's pale skin making him look like some insane megolomaniac.

"Did I say your refrigerator was running? No it was those damn fire crackers. You know how you're not supposed to hold them; well I figured that out ten seconds too late." The man blinked as an answer came through the phone.

"Oh god I'm in pain! You have no idea how much it hurts! My hand feels like it exploded and I think I lost a finger or two! I can't tell there's so much blood and pain and I think I'm going to die!" The man made fake sobbing noises into the phone and poked his wound harshly to get the necessary scream of pain. L grabbed the phone from the man before he could touch his wound again.

"We are currently situated at the To-oh University and would be delighted if you could make yourself useful and get a paramedic." L shut off the phone and stared at the man who was now visibly shaking in pain.

"You didn't need to do that you know, I could have handled it." He gave out a shaky laugh then fell to his knees and cried out again. Blood soaked through the shirt and jacket near his rib cage and shoulder. He started laughing and clutching his side tears began to stream down his face. The man had started to laugh and sob hysterically in one glorious moment.

People began to notice the group situated in the court and L moved to block the man out of sight. The man nodded appreciatively and tried to contain his laughter. A pool of blood was forming around L's feet and shone in the sun light.

People began to push and shove to get a better glimpse at the stranger, calling out to Light and asking who he was. The man leaned away from L and gave a puzzled look at the gathering crowd.

"So I suppose this is an odd way to meet. But I'm interested do you normally try to kill random strangers with tennis balls, or is it just me?" L ignored the man's question. Dark eyes met his in a questioning stare.

"Oh don't look so serious, this happens all the time. It's some strange African Parasite embedded in my skin that breaks out when I get stressed." He laughed then clutched his side again.

He couldn't exactly say why but the man seemed oddly familiar, even the bizarre comments. The odd sense of déjà vu only grew stronger the longer he spent talking to him.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" The man smirked softly.

"Perhaps, I travel a lot so you might have seen me in passing."

"Have we ever talked before?" The man lifted his head and glared. L felt a chill despite the warm sun. A sheer alien intelligence glowed behind the human surface only showing their true depth in his eyes.

"I told you, asking to many questions tends to get you in trouble. I'm an expert in the being too-damn-clever-for-my-own-good, it doesn't bode well and gets people pissed. And trust me you don't want the public pissed; they hold all the power you know." L's eyes narrowed. Something about him just wasn't right.

Red lights flashed and an ambulance pulled into the nearby parking lot, the man's face lightened. "Oh good here come the paramedics, right on time too."

Pushing himself off the ground he staggered towards the car with the amount of speed as a tortoise in lead boots. Light moved out of the way when the man passed by and began to stare off towards the car.

Just as the man reached the ambulance his eyes bulged and his face paled. His body jerked in an upright position then he fell to the ground. He was having a heart attack…

L's eyes lost focus and he ignored the rush of movement from the crowd gathering to see the victim. The man had had a heart attack. He was far too young for it to be natural, but why would Kira want him dead? It didn't make sense, but did anything else in this case? Perhaps this man was his next big clue to finding Kira's identity.

He watched the ambulance pull away with a new found interest, he finally found a liable suspect.

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Heart attacks weren't fun to have, and over the years he had had more than a decent share. More then any normal person would be able to tolerate. After the initial heart attack he felt the familiar pain of losing his body and traveling back to the cursed blank page. Damn Light and his need to play tennis with a complete stranger, this was all his fault.

Looking at the white walls of his personal insane asylum he waited for the higher intelligence to send him back at Light's beginning. Suddenly a sharp pain caused him to get dragged back from the blank prison with an intolerable pain. Gasping for breath his body jerked into an upright position with screech. What the hell?!

He flailed like a fish out of water, this wasn't right. Normally being sent back was far less awkward and embarrassing. He must have some how avoided death by means of getting hit by a semi truck or lightning. Why couldn't death have taken a vacation on his normal death date?!

He snapped open his eyes. Two men in white coats were staring at him like he was a lunatic. That meant one of two things; either he was being taken to the hospital or an insane asylum. Neither were very fun places and both wreaked of anesthetic and fresh paint, trying to get rid of the lovely smell of the diseased.

"I love it when people stare at me! You know what's even more fun, poking me with a stick. That really makes me feel accepted!" Nope they just kept on staring. Raito took a look around the vehicle, seeing no straight jackets and a hell of a lot of IV bags he concluded that he was not going to the loony bin.

"Which hospital am I being shipped off to?" The paramedics didn't answer. Great now when he had finally gained the ability to speak to humans they lost the ability to form coherent thoughts.

"Work with me here, you can do it. Just open your mouths and allow your vocal chords to vibrate. You can do it! I have faith in you!" Well that last part was a lie but that didn't matter to them.

"You… your hand…" Yes the god damn hand that felt like bleeding its little heart out. He hated his hand so very much. The first man was younger than the second with brown hair and brown eyes; he had that same puppy dog look that Misa and Matsuda got when they don't understand something exceedingly simple. Like the fact that his hand was a horrific mass of blood and gore.

"Yes I know it looks like a mess but really you aren't answering my question, or forming complete sentences." The man swallowed nervously and Raito just rolled his eyes. Humans took forever to say nothing, a very irritating fact that annoyed him to no end.

"Your hand what happened?" Raito looked down at his hand; the bleeding swollen mass could have about seven hundred different explanations. He would have to pick the most likely and the most stupid.

"Well me and some friends of mine got drunk and went to a party. And there were a ton of hot… babes there you should have seen it." Raito pretended to reminisce about his party while trying to remember if a man his age would call a girl babe.

"Anyway so we wanted to show off how manly and tough we were in front of the hot chicks. We decided to have a contest on who could hold a lit fire cracker the longest." Well that sounded stupid enough to be done by a drunk human. While normally idiotic, humans are suicidal when drinking.

"And I won." He lifted his hand in its bleeding glory and the men looked away. He moved his fingers to make sure they still worked; he didn't want to be crippled.

"Anyway now could you be so kind as to tell me where the hell a drunken idiot with a hangover goes when he blows off his fingers, that would be stellar." The men ignored him and went back to trying to keep his physical body from falling apart.

"You're going to the hospital." Why did they feel the need to state the obvious, even if he was a drunk he would know he was going to the hospital.

"No, really I did not guess that!" The sarcasm lost its effect on the paramedics. He sighed and let his eyes wander over towards the extra medical equipment.

My god with all that machinery he could work wonders his fingers were twitching to take it apart and mess with it. He'd had enough practice with Wedy's camera's and bugs not to mention the Yagami household television. With his mechanic skills he bet he could take that heart monitor apart in thirty seconds or less.

"Do you mind if I decapitate your standardized equipment in a strictly professional manner?" The older man grunted and nodded. Well they obviously didn't know what decapitate meant, the poor fools.

Sliding off the stretcher in a less dignified manner than he had hoped for (He still hadn't quite adjusted to the physical body) he crawled over the heart monitor and let his good right hand begin tampering.

"What are you doing?!" outraged cries rang in his ears but he was beyond that now lost in the world of medical mechanics.

A hand grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back onto the stretcher. He looked up to find angry pairs of eyes focused on the heart monitor. Well they should have known he was going to rip it to pieces, the monitor hardly even looked like a piece of machinery anymore. It looked more like a crushed block of metal that someone threw in the trash.

"Yes?"

"You destroyed our heart monitor!" There was that annoying habit of pointing out the obvious again. Why couldn't they just keep their pitiful outbursts in their heads?

"No I didn't, it would be destroyed if I had a sledge hammer." The man's face was beet red with rage.

"I can fix it you know, just give me five more minutes with it."

The man looked like he was about to yell again but the younger man cut him off. "Done! Just fix it please!" Raito nodded and rolled back off the stretcher.

After three stress filled minutes of working he fixed the metal death monitor one handed. Well not that he had been stressed; it was all the damn humans who were freaking out.

"Are you happy now?" The two paramedics sighed in relief as Raito pulled away from the box.

"Now stay on the stretcher!" They did sound pretty pissed, maybe they would have gotten fired if they had found some patient tampering with precious equipment.

"Alright I will stay on the stretcher." He raised his hands in surrender and settled back onto the stretcher closing his eyes.

A faint smiled touched his lips as the white car made its way down the highway and towards a hospital and an unknown future. Things were interesting again.

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**Author's note: Yay Raito, you have a physical body back! Clap for him people. Unfortunately for him he also has become a major suspect in the Kira case. Well he can't have it both ways. **

**Okay I have to tell you people about some of the most hilarious moments since I became obsessed with Death Note:**

**I was reading Death Note (volume ten I think) and Light was plotting about who to give the death note to in the police force when he said he thought the next owner would be Matsuda. I couldn't help it I burst out laughing it was just hilarious I couldn't help it. But it was one of those silent moments so a friend of mine looked over and asked what I was laughing at. But she hadn't read Death Note or even heard of it. **

**Carni: Uh.,.. Well there's this guy and he is Kira so he kills off criminals and he plans to pass off his power to an idiot… Yeah. It was funny okay! **

**Friend: 00 **

**There was a book review going on and one of the people was reviewing for Death Note. **

**Book guy: Yeah this is a good book if you like Asiany stuff and it's about Light Yagmi (Yes he botched the name that badly) and he's a bored student, like us. At school you know a high school student… Anyways he picks up this notebook and it's evil and yeah… So it's really good and it's a comic and you read it backwards.**

**Notice how he didn't mention the fact that Light is planning on using the notebook to kill off the world's criminals nor the note books facts or even his god complex. I nearly laughed at that except the guy was in my class so it would be awkward. **

**Go review and make the poor authoress happy for finally introducing the plot. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: Here's chapter four woot. I can't even begin to imagine how long this thing will be but it will be more than four chapters. Ha. Anyways I'm sorry if I confused any of you to death. Thanks to readers and reviewers who stick by me. **

**Disclaimer: If I owned death note then L would have come back from the dead and overshadow Near. (No offense or anything but L is way cooler than Near) I also don't own Starbucks **

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When the stench of sanitary equipment reached his nostrils Raito instantly realized that he would live through yet another day. In a hospital…

Sighing and stretching he looked around the room for any sign of color that was supposed to uplift the mood. Not that it worked, if you're dying of cancer you're still going to die even if some bleeding heart decides to get you roses. The stark white room had the unusual neat colorless void that always sent his heart into a calamity of terror. The beeping monitors were lined up to his left along with his new IV bag that was pumping Type A blood into his arm. God he hated hospitals, it always brought up bad memories.

Not only was he stuck in the human death pit he also wasn't alone to ponder over his misery. They stuck some bloke into the bed next to his, and not just any bloke from the look of it. Sochiro Yagaimi. The man had massive five a-clock shadow that Raito envied and he wore his glasses.

Well it would be good to start up a conversation before things got awkward, "So what are you stuck here for?" Sochiro looked over towards him, seemingly surprised at the fact that there was someone else in the room with him.

"I suffered from a heart attack." Well that was specific; it wasn't as if he knew that Raito knew every detail.

"Well welcome to the club." Sochiro's head whipped around to stare in shock at him. Was it that surprising for a thin twenty three year old to have a heart attack? Probably, but with Kira running about how could anything be surprising.

"You had a heart attack?" Raito smirked and nodded. He placed his good hand on his heart.

"I decided that it was a good idea to enter a pie eating contest, I gagged on all the pie and ate so much it instantaneously clogged my arteries and caused a heart attack." Sochiro didn't look like he bought it but that was the best explanation he was going to give. Not that he had been able to eat pie anyways; lacking a physical body always was a downer with food about.

Silence filled the room and Sochiro looked away again, there went his efforts for trying to make small talk. Tapping his fingers he looked towards the miniature T.V. on Sochiro's side of the room, so close yet so far. Damn his bed ridden body!

Using his arms he pushed himself up into a sitting position and attempted to move his legs. Attempted would be the best use of words considering that he got them to twitch.

"Move legs damn you, move!" It was all the years of being out of a physical body finally getting to him. The human body was far more complex than the human mind, and despite all the medical books he had read over the years he still was having trouble working the damn thing.

"Are you okay?" Raito sent a harsh glare to the man he once called father. Sochiro was staring at him in a similar fashion to the paramedics on his way to this drugged up hell-hole.

"Oh I am terrific, not only am I bed ridden, and I've lost the ability to not look like a complete idiot! How's your life?!" Sochiro opened his mouth and Raito gave out a harsh laugh. He pulled his hand through his hair and settled back onto the pillow.

The silence was deafening in the cramped room. Raito tried to content himself with staring at the horrible modern art in the room, trying to follow Sochiro's standard of looking pale and tired (he had the pale part down) but got bored and gave up.

"Don't tell the nurse I left." He rolled off the bed and onto the floor with the grace of a dead two thousand five hundred sixty three year old man can muster. Leaning against the wall for support he pushed himself up to an unsteady standing position. The IV bag was left in a tangled mess disconnected by his fall and slowly dripping the blood onto the floor. Carefully he ripped off some of the bed sheet and tied around his hand. Why in god's name did the idiot have to shoot him before he died? It would have been so much easier if he had only had to contend with heart problems.

"Where are you going?" Sochiro eyed Raito with confusion, he'd obviously only met one other person this damn weird. No guesses who that could be.

Raito stopped in his tracks and turned back towards Sochiro and raised a hand, "I am going to get some coffee!" turning back he walked out the door with all the dignity he had left.

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Well apparently the hospital didn't have coffee, or food, or anything remotely edible. Raito stared at the secretary with a suppressed rage. Behind him was a line of ten people who were starting to cuss him out for arguing with the 'customer service' desk too long. Well damn them he wanted that coffee!

"I'm sorry, what?!" The secretary looked up with the 'oh-you're-still-here' expression and set aside her paper work.

"Sir there is no coffee on the premises; it is unsanitary in this ward. However across the street is a Starbucks." Raito slammed his fist against the glass and swore.

"Hey move it, other people are having a family crisis too!"

"Yeah find your room and go!"

"Mommy what's a bitch?"

"A very very bad word which you must never repeat."

Raito tried to ignore the angry mutters of the crowd but their impatience was getting to him, and besides he needed that coffee.

Turning to the line behind him he decided to give them a piece of his mind, "Oh just shut up! I blew up my hand, show some sympathy damn it!" the line didn't take it with too much sympathy and showed him their own various injuries.

"My nose won't stop bleeding!"

"My sister has cancer!"

"I chopped off my brother's finger!"

"My father had a heart attack!"

All right now he was pissed "Do I look like a bleeding heart?! Hell no, I don't! Why don't you complain to this broad she seems great at the job!"

Turning back to the customer service intending to give her some lip she slammed 'closed' sign in his face.

Smiling at him she said, "End of my shift." Then she sauntered away from the desk taking her purse and leaving the mob of angry-grief-stricken-family-members-of-patients and Raito. Why did all these people feel the need to piss him off for no reason, first there was L, then those incompetent paramedics, now she was joining the club along with his own father! It must be some sort of a conspiracy to make his life a living hell, well screw them he never needed anyone else before!

Turning with conviction he stumbled away from the line and desk and headed towards the exit. "That's it I am going to Starbucks and none of you can stop me!"

"Good riddance you crazy kid!"

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Is it normal for a coffee shop to be closed at four am? When they sell a sleep depriving liquid shouldn't they be open at four am? Shouldn't they care about their tormented customers who could not get their damn coffee?!

Raito sat glumly on the sidewalk, he probably should get back to the hospital but he didn't feel like moving. Across the street the lights from the windows glowed beckoning him to come back to that damn sanitary prison. Who knew what losing all that blood and now sitting in the cold night in only a hospital gown (they had taken away his jacket and other clothes) would do to his body. (Not that it was in that great of condition anyways, he kind of felt like Swiss cheese)

Getting his body back was a complicated issue, he could now talk to people but that only was entertaining for so long. He could do anything he wanted without fearing anyone seeing anything 'super–natural' but it was annoying to have to deal with idiots. Not to mention the fact that he couldn't remember half of how to work his body without tripping on thin air. Couldn't anything just be simple anymore?

He lifted his head and pushed himself up to stagger and make his way back to his hospital bed.

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"That's right Light, this man is L. We call him Ryuzaki to keep his identity hidden but there is no denying it. He is L." L spared a glance to see Light's reaction. The genius seemed deep in thought his hands clasped before his face but then he looked up with genuine sympathy at his father.

"Father…" L watched him closely to see any hint of acting. Kira wouldn't care for a father who was trying to kill him.

"When I had the heart attack I thought that Kira had killed me but now it appears just to be the stress. I've learned a lot while trying to catch Kira and one thing is certain, Kira is evil!" Sochiro's unshaven face glistened with perspiration. Uneven footfalls sounded outside the room and L turned to see the stranger from the tennis court.

"Evil is such an extreme word, I doubt you really mean it." His dark hair was matted and he clutched a crimson stained bed sheet around his hand.

"Kira isn't evil per say he's more prideful and arrogant. And stupid, very stupid, but that is nothing new."

"You think its okay for people to murder one another?!" Light glared at him raising a fist. He shrugged and slowly walked into the room.

"Eh I suppose, I don't really care one way or another but all Kira really is doing is putting criminals to death at a faster rate than the police force themselves. This case isn't about good or evil, it never has been. It's about who's more competent Li- I mean Kira or L. Frankly I think you're I mean they're both a bunch of idiots but that's just me." He stopped in front of Light and raised an eyebrow.

"Dealing out death like a god should be left in the hands of those who know what the hell they're doing. Besides that good and evil is all just a matter of opinion. Does Kira belive that he is evil? Of course not why would anyone do that? My theory is that good and evil doesn't exist or if it does it's only what we can and can't get away with. For example playing god is a big 'no no' but killing a person playing god apparently isn't." He headed towards the unnoticed bed flopping on it with a sigh.

"But I do think you're right about him being miserable, he's so happy he doesn't even know how miserable he is." He raised his right hand with a smirk.

"What's your name?" Light's eyes narrowed at the man.

"We're talking about Kira here and you just asked me my name. Are you trying to be funny Light-san?" Light's jaw dropped and the older man smiled and unwrapped his hand from the bed sheet.

"How did you know my name?"

"You just told me so yourself. I'm pretty good with names and faces." He laughed at some inside joke. L frowned puzzled by this new face, although not quite as pain stricken the man's eyes were still just as dark and foreboding. The man looked around for a bit then his eyes landed on L and he smiled.

"Nathanial Lawilett is what I go by; call me anything else and I may not respond." L nearly fell out of his chair with shock, he knew his name… How?! He'd taken every precaution against it and now a stranger (well not that this was any ordinary person) knew it. He gazed up in horror at 'Nathanial' and he was smiling and nodding slowly.

He must also know that he is L, which meant. It wasn't possible, it couldn't be possible. Nathanial… Nate, Nate Rivers! He knew about Near, he knew he had successors he hadn't even told the task force that information. L's eyes glazed over and he pressed a finger to his lips. He'd have to take drastic measures; he couldn't let this man out of his sight if he knew that much information.

"Now who are you?" He pointed to L and Light. L was still trying to gather his thoughts from the shock of Nathanial's words.

Light took over for L and covered for him, "Light Yagami, and Ryuga Hideki." Nathanial snorted.

"Now I know you're screwing with me. _Ryuga Hideki? _Do you think I'm some kind of moron? Honestly who would name him after a pop idol? My god if they did he would be miserable for his whole life! I never did get why he did that." Light blinked and L's head turned to stare at him again.

"Who did what?" Nathanial blinked in surprise.

"What?"

"You said you didn't get why he did that, who?"

"When did I say that?! Are you putting words in my mouth?!" Light's face began to flush and the older man looked away as if bored by getting in a fight.

"You're the one who said it!" Nathanial looked back with a dead panned expression reserved for shotty musicals.

"Well I'm sorry if you're hearing things, maybe you should get your ears checked." Light's lips twitched into a grin and he was obviously trying to contain his temper.

"Do you have any idea when Starbucks opens? It isn't four am I know that." The man looked for answers on the three faces.

"No? Alright then, you sure are a talkative bunch."

Light looked to his father than to the other man. L bit on his thumb in agitation.

"Father if Kira ever kills you I swear I will send him to the execution block myself!" L had to say that this was genuine; no one could sound this corny and be acting. Slow clapping came from the other bed.

"You really are a bunch of idiots, you know that." Light and Sochiro glared at the young man in clear distaste. The man just winked at them and smiled.

"How dare you talk that way!" Nathanial exaggerated a yawn and stumbled away from his hospital bed. He walked over to the opposite side of the room and paused by the door.

"If I didn't say it who would? Well looks like I overstayed my welcome and my budget must be overwhelming with the amount of employees I pissed off. Good day gentlemen and may we never meet again." He nodded towards Light and Sochiro and gave a sad smile towards L.

"By the way _Ryuga _even though the circumstances have changed my answer is still the same. I am a lying son of a bitch." He turned away from the confused spectators and marched out the door. The three waited in silence until they were sure that nobody was near before they spoke again.

"_A lying son of a bitch? _What is that supposed to mean?" Light rubbed his head in confusion. L looked back towards the door listening to the distant crashes of medical equipment in the hallway.

"I'm sure I have no idea Light-kun, it appears Nathanial-san is as much a mystery as always." Light nodded. The three men sat in silence reviewing the conversation with the shadowy phantom Nathanial Lawilett.

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**Author's note: When I decided on Raito's gear I was originally going to use the suit he died in but dark trench coats kick butt! Yeah if you want to know what it looks like it's Watari's jacket when he's meeting with Interpol. And yes Nathanial is Raito just for you confused folks. **

**My friend in history says I draw dead people too much. And I said that I only drew injured people not dead people and they just happen to have huge scythes. Not a very convincing argument I assure you. I drew a comic making fun of Harry Potter 7 and the main character was Death. She was kind of freaked out about that. **

**If you want my author's notes to be shorter review, if you want them longer review, if you want me to shut up and write review. Remember to review. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: Chapter five! Yay! Ugh I just realized that too my annoyance that this is turning into a comedy (Curse my need to make jokes) so I'll probably change the genre AGAIN! (sobs) **

**Right well anyway time to get on with this. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note**

Life is confusing. It never runs on a straight course well unless you were stuck in some sort of dimensional prison but for the vast majority humans it was as unpredictable as a feather in the breeze. And lately it had been unpredictable to a point of annoyance.

Raito maneuvered through the hallways with as much speed as he could without running into anything. (A daunting task but he was slightly better now) Or anyone, especially if it was an annoyingly conveniently placed human who asked too many questions and had enough of a brain to tell when he was lying his ass off.

L had a habit of appearing at the worst times and situations like when he showed up at his college. The guy was at least five years older than him if not more! Why did he feel the need to show up at his college?! Not only that but he also caused Raito to become claustrophobic, agoraphobic, and a deadly fear of cameras and bugs.

Although it would have been obvious to any idiot with half a brain that L was still running on the normal timeline and that he would have shown up at that hospital eventually. Raito just hadn't gotten out of there fast enough and now he had once again been caught in an extremely awkward position. Where he had had to give away the fact that he knew a hell of a lot information without revealing to much about himself. They probably thought he was some sort of phantom. The phantom of the deranged hospital… had a nice ring to it.

Turning through corridors he tried to remember any obvious place where the white coats would have left his clothing. The hallways were fairly empty of any nurses which was a good sign considering his bullet wounds although not quite healed still displayed enough gore to get him locked in his room for good. It was a relatively known fact (by Raito at least) that when some idiot broke a rule he got a physical body back (good) it also happened to retain the same injuries and issues that had caused the initial death in the first place (bad) which was one of the major reasons that Matsuda was first on his death list.

After walking for at least ten minutes in circles around the floor, sniffing out his coat like a dog he finally found the closet where his clothing had been stored. Thank god they hadn't burned anything; he didn't have the time or the money to go shopping for an outfit. The black jacket was hanging neatly in one corner, silver buckles shining in the electric lighting. Smiling he pulled out the jacket and boots making sure they kept his body warm before he left. No need to end up in a hospital again due to lack of preparation.

The door slammed behind him and he made his way towards the night street, back into the darkness and shadows where he belonged.

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L was not one to be easily confused or surprised. He could predict everything with an accuracy that could only be gawked at by the less intelligent. Not that he showed it off on a daily basis, he much preferred to take others by surprise and show them that appearances were deceiving. And then the Kira case had started and now he was confronted with two suspects whose genius could possibly surpass his own. One was the ambitious justice driven Light Yagami who stood in the spotlight and whose past was easily found out and digested. The other… he was more complicated, most would dismiss him for an insane man but behind those black eyes there glittered an intelligence that seemed almost inhuman. His past was in the shadows and L hadn't even been able to deduce the man's name. In fact it appeared the suspect knew his name, although that was completely impossible.

After leaving Sochiro to get his rest, Light and L walked down to the ground level in a brooding silence. Both of them had their reasons for not speaking and it appeared both of them were focused on the mysterious phantom.

Light was the first to speak, "Do you think Kira is miserable?" L blinked stopping in the middle of the stair case. Light was looking towards the wall and down the stairs.

"It is highly probable; no joy can come from death." Light nodded slowly. Light's actions in the hospital pointed to his innocence but there was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head. And then there was Nathanial's words _'You really are a bunch of idiots, you know that." _

"Do you think our new acquaintance is gone?"

"No doubts about it Light-kun." The two began walking again making their steady way through the stair well.

Outside the hospital building L and Light stopped as Watari pulled up in his limousine, Light shivered in the cold and L stepped in the car.

"L I can't stand it! How can I prove I'm not Kira!" L raised an eyebrow.

"No need, if you aren't Kira I will know. Proof isn't in abundance in the case as is obvious." Light stepped back. L nearly closed the window before adding one last thing,

"Light-kun almost had me convinced back in the hospital, I doubt even Kira could act that well." Light smiled at him and waved. L rolled up the window and signaled for Watari to drive into the night unaware of Light watching them depart and the shinigami cackling in the silence.

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The house was there exactly as he remembered it. Prim and proper it looked identical to every other house on the street. Little did anyone know it actually housed an insane megalomaniac, it almost sounded like an episode of desperate housewives. Raito chuckled darkly at the thought of his house being filmed in some cheesy little soap opera.

The Yagami house hold was only dark and foreboding to him anyone else would be oblivious to its dark aura. But it had to be done before Light got to have too much fun with that black little diary of his. He'd have to steal from the little weasel. Damn him.

Raito slid off his shoes and left his coat in a folded bundle at the bottom of Light's window. Taking a deep breath Raito jumped onto the scaffolding and grabbed onto the lower part of the balcony. Using his pathetic arm strength to get himself onto the ledge he grunted in pain and effort. Thank god everyone was out right now; they would have found him right away with all the damn noise he was making. Even humans were not that deaf.

"I'm too old for this." Obviously.

Raito took out a small screwdriver stolen from the hospital and busied himself on picking the window's lock. He could of course just taken the easy way and thrown a brick through but that was too messy for his purposes.

The window clicked open and Raito shoved a leg through landing in a tangled mess in his old room.

Nothing had changed. Text books and encyclopedias lined the book shelf, on the desk a computer and a mini television sat along with a bowl of fresh apples, and on the bottom shelf of the book case sat the disguised porn that Light had enjoyed so much.

Raito's eyes scanned the dark room for the drawer hiding the 'greatest weapon in the history of man-kind' and got up from his heap on the floor. He pulled out the drawer carefully throwing the brown diary on the far side of the wall. All that was written in the brown little diary was a bunch of crap about school life, nothing that would give any insight to Light's killings.

Blindly he reached for what should have been the pencil cup and knocked over a much heavier object that resulted in a crash.

"Oh crap!" Raito went back to searching the desk for the pencil container only finding it after he managed to knock it over.

"Well there goes trying to be inconspicuous." Fumbling through the pencils and pens he picked up the black ball point pen and unscrewed the lid.

"Who can't walk ten steps without tripping now?!" He held up the pen triumphantly.

Moving back towards the drawer he felt the underside for the small telltale hole that would lift the false bottom without burning the house down. (He had had far too many experiences with house fires) He pushed up the bottom and pulled out the notebook from its gasoline filled death tray.

Walking towards the door with death book under his arm he looked back towards the porno and he couldn't resist. Dropping the notebook on the floor he rashly grabbed one of the playboy books and shoved it into the false drawer.

"Now Light why don't you look at naughty pictures like a good boy?"

Nodding in satisfaction at the mess he left he picked the notebook back up and smoothly slid back out the window, the Yagami household would have a bit of a surprise when they got back home.

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**Author's note: Man that was a boring chapter. Nothing happened! **

**I thought about leaving Raito longer in the hospital but I think he would've killed me if I left him there for another chapter. And I originally thought about putting Light's reaction to his room in this chapter but I don't think I will. **

**It's kind of funny I draw all the time in my planner for school and it's mainly rough sketches of stuff only I would get. For example my friend mistook a drawing of Light for Edward Cullen from Twilight. I just about died. Edward is a hippie (you have to admit it's true) and is the farthest thing from Light possible, I did end up giving her a side view though because well I think she'd like it more than I would. **

**I know you people are confused, tell me what I have to elaborate on and I'll try to. For some reason I write really confusing things. It's even worse when I draw junk. **

**Review that's all you have to do…**

**I mean it…**

**Just push the button…**

**On the bottom of the screen…**

**Yeah that's the one…**

**You can do it…**

**I think….**

**Just review…**

**REVIEW!**


	6. Chapter 6

Author's note: Woot is this chapter six

**Author's note: Woot is this chapter six? I think it is. Hmmmm wow I wrote six chapters. **

**Is it just me or have I been delaying updating. Maybe that's just me getting nervous. As for my grammar errors… I try folks, I try. And I know my commas are missing and so are my semi-colons but I didn't feel like harassing my beta even more than I already do. So there. **

**I really want to start on some dialogue again, that's what I'm good at. But unfortunately for me I still have to get through some internal monologue. (Sighs) This story is going to take FOREVER!!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own death note. **

Back on the street Raito stared at his old house reminiscing on his old memories. He could never turn back, he'd never be able to enter that house again, and he'd never be able to talk to his father ever again. Everything had changed. He was a stranger now, and would never be accepted by humanityagain.

Maybe it was the physical body emphasizing the lonely feeling, but ever since he'd come back it seemed as if he was even more isolated than before. Freedom came with a price; it was a double edged sword. And while he wielded it with pride, it always managed to slice through his own flimsy armor.

Taking the notebook from under his arm he stared at the gothic lettering spelling out 'Death Note'. He caressed the cover slowly, ivory toned hands shaking with the now fresh memories. With a cry he hurled the notebook down on the sidewalk and pulled out set of matches.

"Well my old friend this is a farewell. I'll see you in Hell!" Striking the match he laughed as he saw the greedy little flame dance.

All sane thoughts left his mind as he dropped the flame onto the notebook. The hungry flames grew spreading across the notebook in a dance of lights and heat. The notebook shrank and curled in the sudden inferno. In his mind he could hear the book screaming in pain in rhythm with his own unsteady breathing.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there staring at the charred remains of the death note; it could have been minutes or hours. A faint stream of smoke trailed up from the death note stinging Raito's eyes.

Stumbling back in shock he fell on the ground. It was unbelievable. After a thousand life times, he had finally destroyed the notebook that had thrown him into a dark abyss; where he could never again see the light of day. And yet he was still cursed, still trapped, and still damned.

Raito sifted his hands through the ash fingering the black sand; salty tears dropping from his disbelieving eyes onto the notebook. It would be all over, Light couldn't kill without the notebook. That would drop the death rate down tremendously, causing him to have saved countless amounts of lives. Making his sentence nearly over, why did that thought hurt? After all he had seen and experienced how could he even begin to feel pain after it was all over.

Could he be afraid?

No, impossible. He was ready. He had been ready all his life. He was always ready to leave it behind, hadn't that been his goal? To create the world into some impossible utopia, a place that would be his own creation of heaven. Where no one would be afraid of the night and everyone could live in peace.

He looked up to the sky and let the epiphany sink in.

"There is no peace, where humans thrive."

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L tapped his fingers against the laptop in an agitated rhythm. He'd lost him. His only liable suspect had once again disappeared into the night leaving L lost and blind in the shadows. Not one person had seen a man with his description. L had gone back to the hospital to get some time to interrogate him, only to hear that he had left only moments before L himself had. And after questioning school students and other witnesses to the tennis match he had to come to an impossible conclusion.

Nathanial Lawilett had the ability to teleport.

L bit his thumb in frustration. Nothing made sense with this case, how were they going to catch a murderer with the ability to disappear without a trace?

"Ryuzaki, we brought the information you asked for." L blinked trying to redirect his thoughts towards the case. He reached for the papers holding them up in his odd manor.

"Ah yes. Thank you Mogi." The taskforce looked with rapt attention towards the distracted detective. L had personally asked them to all attend the meeting as they would be analyzing information on possible suspects.

"The way I see it there are two possible suspects for Kira." The men looked around at each other slightly confused. The last they had heard there had only been one suspect.

"There's another suspect?" asked Aizawa

"Yes. Unfortunately, it seems our second suspect has a unique ability to disappear when convenient." L grimaced at his own words. The men looked up even more confused than ever.

"What do you mean Ryuzaki?" Matsuda's question was no doubt revolving in the police member's heads.

"I mean that besides Light Yagami, the only person whose percentage of being Kira comes anywhere close doesn't have a name and has disappeared into thin air." L shifted through the paper work glumly.

"So what do you know about the suspect?" L sighed. What did he know about the mysterious Nathanial? Nothing. He knew absolutely nothing about the man. That made him the suspect with the most likelihood of being Kira. And now he was stuck, caught in the intellectual trap of his own crippling curiosity.

"Absolutely nothing." The men stared at him uncomprehending. After all how could the great detective L be at a loss?

"Don't you have any reason to suspect him?"

"Do we have reason to suspect anyone in this case?" L looked up to see the grave and silent faces.

"Other than that I don't believe we have anything else to discuss. You may take the rest of the day off." The task force sat still, not moving from their seats. L stood and exited the room before he could feel their disappointment reach him.

After walking he found himself outside the hotel; but he still kept walking needing to think.

It sounded impossible; L hardly knew anything about the man. And yet he was sure that he was holding something back, something important to solving the case. He could see it in the way he had tensed when he had seen L and Light. It was in the cold inferno that swirled in his eyes. He knew something vital. And he had known L was closing in. So he had simply chosen to disappear.

He closed his eyes remembering the man as he had last appeared in the hospital, dark eyed and pale he had been mocking of Light's care for his father. His eyes had shown a fiery hatred at the sight of the prestigious student, a hate unfathomable by the detective. And there was his last statement, directed towards him. _'I am a lying son of bitch…' _While not exactly eloquent the words had caught his attention. What could he have meant, and what had he been answering.

L ground his teeth in frustration. He couldn't think with those memories stored in his brain, and that had only been a few moments. Think if he had spent a day, or even a few hours with the man; it would drive him mad. Nathanial was like a puzzle, old and unused, just waiting to be dusted off and solved. And L was the determined to be the one to crack the code.

The detective gave a curse and shoved his hands into his pockets; it was going to be another long week.

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The early morning light slid through the café windows, lighting up the equipment and tables. Raito reached for his coffee and took a drink.

After burning the death note he had come to the familiar café to have time to think. And maybe to be close to his old life where he had been respected and loved. He had been perfect to a fault and yet everyone had loved him because of it. Possibly life's greatest mystery was not the why they were there, but why they acted the way they did.

He fingered his coffee mug thoughtfully. It was nearly over. But what would really await him on the other side?

He had never believed in heaven, it had seemed to perfect to be true. Every time he saw another grotesque murder he was reminded of how flawed humans truly were. How can there be a heaven when people like this existed in the world?

Ryuk's words only amplified his own beliefs; humans couldn't go to heaven or hell simply because heaven and hell didn't exist. He had immediately accepted it as the truth. After all what would the shinigami gain from lying?

After his death, he had excpected to simply disappear. And in a way he did. All he could recall of the actual world of death was a blank canvas, where even shadows became nothing. And now… here he was again, thinking the same dark thoughts about his future.

He really needed to stop doing that before he became completely paranoid. It was already bad enough as it was, no need to make things worse.

Had Light gone home yet? He would know something was up. Of course the random stranger wouldn't cross his mind, but there was nothing he could do without his trusty death note… His death note… Oh god, he had forgotten the pieces in his wallet!

Raito sat up with a jolt knocking over the table spilling the coffee on the floor. Pulling on his jacket he rushed towards the door to find Kira and pickpocket his wallet.

"I'm sorry about the coffee and the table, but I can't pay anyways!" Raito didn't wait for the waiters answer.

By the time the waiter had realized he left without paying Raito was halfway down the street.

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L stared at the house with an icy fury. It was a whim really. His feet had taken him across the city to the one house he didn't want to visit. In fact his idea to visit the Yagami household was ill advised and just plain stupid; he'd wanted to be close to Light but not close enough to visit his house on a whim.

Stepping up to the doorway he rang the doorbell once. Footsteps sounded from inside the house and got louder as they approached the doorway. The door opened, a girl who looked to be about twelve or thirteen looked at him with unconcealed surprise.

"Hello?" She looked L up and down slightly confused by his appearance. L tried to look as polite as possible while he analyzed the inside of the house. The hallway was neat and prim, exactly like Light himself. A vase sat on a mahogany table containing about five or six pink tulips.

"Hello, I am Hideki Ryuga. A friend of Light-kun's from college. He needed some help studying." The girl looked slightly wary at this, but led him inside. He took off his dirty sneakers and walked up the stairs to Light's room. The door opened onto a scene he would have never expected.

Light was sitting on his bed fingering a small index card, his expression void of any feeling. On the floor there was a computer broken into fragments broken glass scattered on the carpeting. A pencil holder was knocked over on the desk leaving pencils discarded everywhere. One of the ball point pens lid was unscrewed causing ink to have spilled off the desk and onto the floor. But what drew L's attention the most was the open drawer containing a pornographic magazine.

"Does Light-kun enjoy reading porn?" Light didn't move, he continued to stare numbly at the wall like a dead man.

"Light-kun?" Light blinked slowly almost as if awakening from a trance. He looked over at L his chocolate eyes glazed over.

"I didn't do this; I didn't do any of this I swear." The boy looked shocked even slightly afraid. L walked forward and hunched towards Light.

"When I got home it was like this but no one had come in. I would have known. It was like it was a ghost." He shook his head. L shifted uncomfortably he didn't want to comfort the boy.

"It's fine Light-kun." Light sighed and dropped his head. His shoulders shaking he gave a horse chuckle.

"Fine! You call this fine! Oh you really have a sense of humor L don't you?!" The boy gave a harsh laugh, L's eyes narrowed.

"I'll make whoever did this pay, I'll see to it. That is my new goal." Light's voice grew cold and unfeeling, his vacant expression replaced by one of hate. Exactly like Nathanial's eyes in the hospital…

The two looked up at a tapping sound on the window. Light clutched the index card tightly in his hand, standing up to meet the eyes of the figure outside the window. Light swiftly opened the window allowing the startled intruder to collapse in the room.

Nathanial looked up from the carpet to Light, "That probably was not the best idea; coming through the window is not as fun as it looks."

**Author's note: Dun dun dun! **

**(cue evil music) **

**Wow that was a depressing chapter; it gives a little more insight to Raito's thought process. So that's good, since Raito tends to be a very confusing person. **

**By the way I got my beta to work on this story but since she's so busy and I do want to update I think I'll continue on my own for a little longer, I'm driving her insane with other writing projects. Ha. **

**So I tried working on my grammar, knowing me I messed up despite all the spell check. Ummmmm that's about it. **

**According to a chain letter I got I will be hit by a bus, I'm using the same rules for this last statement, 'If you don't review you will be hit by a bus.' **

**Just kidding, I could never be so mean to reviewers. **

**Just review. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: (Gasp) Dialogue chapter! Yayz! I am so pleased! I managed to write myself into a dialogue chapter! Clap for me. **

**Thanks to you reviewers, readers, and other people. I hope you weren't hit by a bus. XD**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or any of the movies I randomly quote **

Raito swore; he looked from Light to L. Light looked more pissed than he'd have expected, perhaps it was the whole deal of burning the death note. Not that it wasn't expected, he hated it when people messed with his schemes. He could relate. Well of course he could, it was him they were talking about.

No, what he hadn't wanted, or expected for that matter; was L being his usual nosey self and showing up in Light's room. Since when did L just walk into Light's (and his) life and just get away with it. That bastard!

Raito pretended to ignore L's wry smile and stood up from his embarrassing position on the floor. Why did he always have to crash into stuff? Ever since he got his physical body back he hadn't been able to keep on his feet. Then again being two thousand years out of practice can take a toll on someone's coordination.

"Well hello Light-san, Ryuga." Raito growled out the last words with all the menace he could muster. But nope L just kept on grinning like an idiot.

"And you can wipe that grin off your face right now. It's pissing me off." L ignored his words and placed a thumb in between his lips.

It was a peculiar habit that the detective never intended to break, and it drove Raito mad. Every moment L's thumb was stuck between his teeth whether he was nervous, happy, angry, sad, or any emotion the man had where was the thumb? That's right; stuck in his mouth. It almost made it seem like he was mocking Raito, he still had _some_ pride left.

Well no point hanging around now, he could always come back later.

"Why did you crawl through my window?" Light's words contained the amount of love as a vat full of fiery hot battery acid, he sounded downright pissed.

"Hello Nathanial-kun, I've been meaning to talk to you." L's face was priceless; he looked a hell of a lot like that cracked up cat in Alice in Wonderland.

Deal with angry Light and drugged up L in the same room, or slide back out the window and steal some coffee? Hmmmm, decisions, decisions… that coffee was starting to sound damn good.

"Well I've been meaning to get a restraining order against you. But hey we all have our problems." Raito made his face make it clear that he meant business.

Light's fist was curled, obviously he must still have his memories or else he wouldn't have looked so mad. Besides even after the death note was destroyed Mikami hadn't lost his memories, the same rules must have applied.

That or someone was screwing with his life again, not that he would put it past any of them up there. Pick one; they're all guilty as far as he was concerned.

"Get out of my room, now." Light's eyes started to get to that scary crimson color, which was Raito's cue to get the hell out before Light blew.

"Oh I am so hurt, you don't like me. I'm so hurt that I'll crawl back out that window and never come back, I hope you're happy." Raito sniffed and made to leave the room, until the world's greatest detective interrupted him.

"I have to ask Nathanial-kun some questions." And here was L blabbing away about something when it was clear Light was going through some nervous breakdown. And he was surprised at his lack of girlfriends.

"Ryuzaki, this man just broke into my house. I want him out." Why weren't any of them concerned with the fact that he somehow managed to climb through the window?

"Oh Light-kun you're no fun." L pouted at the teen.

"No." Said the briefly ignored Raito, if he was going to make a point he'd make it now before he was interrupted again.

"No?" L looked amused at his refusal.

"I am not discussing politics here, especially in front of him." Raito pointed to the defeated murderer.

"He looks like he's been raped; do you have something you want to confess?" L looked outraged at this comment and Light looked even more pissed than L, but again he didn't really give a damn what they thought. They needed their egos taken down a notch.

"I'm going to ignore that last statement." Muttered the detective sourly.

"Well if you're just going to ignore me…" Raito backed slowly towards the open window.

"No, Nathanial-kun just broke and entered into a home. I think he has something to explain himself." The pale man stopped and glared at the detective. Most people would get the hint that Raito was not a people person, in fact how could you not?! But L, oh no; he just kept on pushing and asking until the end of time!

"Doors are for boring people. I prefer to be original." The detective did not look in the least amused.

"I still need to discuss something of great importance with Nathanial kun." That was it, there was no way in hell that Raito was going to talk to L. Sure it was great talking to him when he was stuck with Misa, but right now he had other things to deal with. And none of those included the insomniac detective interrogating him till midnight.

"I can't stand being near you two. Alone your insufferable, together you're… even more insufferable!" He'd have to get the rest of the death note away from Light later. Now he'd have to escape a paranoid detective.

He turned around and dashed towards the open window. Once outside he turned and slammed the window in the detective's face, winking at his angered expression.

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"Damn!" L swore. And where was his suspect now? Out the window, again!

"Light-kun you don't mind if I use your window, do you?" L didn't wait for an answer and slid open the window crouching on the sill to find his suspect. In the corner of his eye he caught the blur of obsidian move on the roof. Well no one said he wasn't dedicated.

Pulling up his skinny body onto the gutters, he scrabbled onto the roof with less grace than he had hoped for. He muttered a curse towards the suspect and inspected his scraped hands, nothing too serious. And when he looked up from his crouched state on the roof he saw the young man facing away from him.

Nathanial's dark hair drifted about in a slight breeze that seemed conjured from thin air itself, his pale hands were clasped behind his back grasping his jacket lightly. L blinked to regain his concentration.

"Nathanial-kun…" whispered the detective more to himself than to the younger man. Nathanial still had his back turned to him, seeming unwilling to move.

"Don't you people know when to leave someone alone?! Generally, when someone climbs onto the roof; you don't follow them." The man didn't even turn to face him as he spoke. L was surprised that he had responded, he was almost certain he had not heard.

"I needed to talk with Nathanial-kun." L trotted carefully closer to the suspect.

"Well, that makes everything better doesn't it?" Nathanial gave an eerie laugh then lapsed into silence.

"How did you know my name?" L let the question suspend in the air for a few moments. Nathanial finally turned round to face him, the dark eyes showing conflict.

"I told you, I'm good with names and faces." Nathanial didn't sound very convincing only leading to further L's suspicion. Something wasn't right, L could feel the warning signals going off in his brain; but still… Something about Nathanial just drew him.

"That didn't answer my question."

There was a moment of silence before Nathanial turned back around and began to climb down the other side of the roof.

"Sorry Ryuga, I really am not much of a conversationalist. I suggest you bottle up that annoying curiosity of yours and never look for me again. " The suspect's eyes and face darkened, his eyes twin points of flame, burning themselves into L's memory. Where had he felt that fire before? The memory was at the tip of his finger tips, like a wisp of wind brushing through his unkempt hair.

Before the man was all the way down the roof L blurted the only response he could think of, "I'll get Nathanial-kun coffee!" Nathanial stopped instantly, his descent downwards halted by the mention of caffeine.

"What kind of coffee are we talking about? That crap on the corner or…" Nathanial lifted his body back onto the roof with a little more effort than needed. And for the first time L really looked at him, his eyes weren't sharp so much now just… deep.

"No, I have a place where we can go." L looked down towards the ground distastefully; it would be much harder getting down.

"It looks like we have a deal Ryuga." Nathanial clasped his pale hands together and laughed at L's dumbstruck expression.

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It was unbelievable, here he had vowed never to see the detective ever again and now he was in a humble little café drinking coffee. Unfortunately it happened to be the same café as earlier. The one he had conveniently stolen from, talk about coincidences. Too much of a coincidence for normal circumstances…

"Um Ryuga, I'd prefer if you go in and get the coffee. I'll just wait out here." Raito shifted out of view from the window, he had a feeling that stealing coffee wasn't a good thing; and that you definitely didn't go back to the coffee shop you stole from.

"If I did that then Nathanial-kun would only take the opportunity to leave before I interrogate him." Stated the detective dragging Raito into the coffee shop. Feeling slightly trapped by the insomniac he began to struggle to get back outside.

"I swear do you read minds or something? Besides, I wouldn't run off before I got the coffee." Raito continued his desperate attempt to get back outside of the building; L just ignored him and dragged him to a corner booth in the back.

Finally giving up Raito sat in the booth, trying to quell the bout claustrophobia rising up within him. He didn't even have to look at the midnight eyes to know they were taking in his every move.

"How did Nathanial-kun know my name?" Well he was persistant, then again he did lock three people up for fifty days in order to prove a point. He hadn't changed at all.

"That's highly classified information." Raito wasn't going to get into super-natural crap with L. You didn't even go into normal crap with L without getting your hands dirty.

"Then how did you know Light-kun's name?" This guy didn't give up!

"Well that one's pretty easy, he's an arrogant asshole. I know of only three people that arrogant, and he fit the description of Light Yagami; it was mostly a guess anyways." Raito grinned at the expression of disappointment on L's face, if he wanted real facts they weren't going to be from him.

"What happened to Nathanial-kun's hand?" L pointed to Raito's injured right hand, well not that it looked injured. Being dead, injuries tended not to show or bother him as much as normal people.

"You saw it, no need to talk about that." Raito lifted the hand to inspect it, he probably should clean it.

"Hands don't explode on a normal basis, this borders on supernatural." Raito nearly groaned, borders wasn't half of it.

"If you were some sort of a… demon, would _you_ tell the witch burners you had magical powers?" asked Raito watching the detective's reaction.

"Yes." Pouted L his eyes growing larger with an attempt to fake a pleading look, over all he looked like Misa.

"No, because personally I don't want to end up lying face down in a gutter. Anything else to ask?"

The detective sighed bringing out some index cards out of his pocket. He spread them out on the table facing towards the spirit in bold letters.

"This information has been shown to police only; it contains suicide letters of prisoners killed by Kira." Oh great, he was going to have to go through this gig again.

"Then why am I seeing it?" L didn't look like he wanted to discuss the reasoning behind his actions; he simply sat and glared at Raito.

"I believe Nathanial-kun's deductive reasoning is better than the average person's." Raito winced; it was because he gave away Light's name. That was a mistake.

"Fine I'll look at your little suicide notes here." Dragging them to himself with a bored expression he checked over the notes and placed them in the order he had originally meant.

"At the top it says, 'L do you know shinigami love apples?' Frankly I think it's a load of BS used to distract you, but hey that's just my opinion. Or there's the numbers you placed on the back of the index cards, but clearly you were drunk when you put those in that order. So we either have the bull shit version or the drunk druggie version, I think its all crap." L pulled out his fake fourth index card.

"No, there were actually four cards. Your reasoning is incorrect." L seemed triumphant in his little victory.

"Unless I knew there were four cards and just didn't tell you. If I told you then your suspicion of me being a murderer would increase greatly. But then again maybe we're both reading it wrong… and Kira is just dyslexic." Raito lifted his hands in surrender, "Could be anything really, but mainly I think he's just BSing you." L stared at Raito in shock; Raito folded his hands in his lap while L continued his calculative gaze.

"I highly doubt Kira is dyslexic, but another opinion is appreciated." Raito smirked at L's puzzled expression; he had obviously expected a similar answer to Light's. Well if he had expected the obvious answers from him he was going to be in for a shock.

"You weren't expecting me were you?" Raito's patience with the detective was wearing thin, not that it had been exactly plentiful before. L just always brought up painful memories, a past he tried to deny or ignore all together.

"I'm sorry?" L's dark eyes revealed nothing, but Raito could feel his confusion in the way he bit his thumb.

"You were expecting someone intelligent and charming; I could see it in the way you kept asking stupid questions. Well I hate to disappoint you but my charming façade has run its course, I won't be changing just to please you." The world's greatest detective sat in silence; the two stared at each other, trying to evaluate each other's response.

The waiter came bringing the coffee breaking the tense silence. L muttered a quiet thank-you then went back to the staring match.

"I wasn't expecting anyone but Nathanial-kun." L dropped a sugar cube into his coffee.

Raito sighed, L was missing the point. He kept on darting around what he was really after.

"Why did you ask me to come here? You would have had more of a reason than to ask me a few questions, questions I most likely would not answer. What do you really want Ryuga?" Raito felt hallow and empty inside, no one truly cared. They still wore their Venetian masks, acting their pain, their joy, their friendship. And Raito's face was bare, showing every tear, every scar, and every smile. He was so sick of masks, he had seen too many for one life time.

"I believe Nathanial-kun is Kira." L's eyes flicked up from the cup of coffee to stare at the suspect.

"Oh I already knew that Ryuga, no need to tell me. But I mean why have you asked me here, why did you even bother?"

"Because I need to stop Kira at all costs, I will even sacrifice my own life." L's words brought up the distant memory, the roof top, the bells…

Raito stiffened at his old enemy's words, it was too much. The reminders, the pain, all flooding back at him.

"I wouldn't be too hasty to say that." Raito turned away from the detective. His eyes hardened at the memory of the detective's death, he hadn't deserved that…

"Are you all right, your face has lost several degrees of its original pigment." L stood and shifted around to see Raito's face. He seemed curious about Raito's grim expression and his sudden lack of words.

"I have only one more question to ask, then Nathanial may go where ever he pleases." L spoke in a quiet voice so as not to scare the specter off. Raito wasn't in the mood to talk but if the detective would just leave him alone for a few moments, that's all he would need.

Raito nodded absently convinced that L would not break his promise.

"What did you mean in the hospital, when you said you were a liar?"

Raito immediately stopped moving, his breath catching in his throat, it was the exact same as before; these were the same mind games that he had played back when he considered himself human. L could still manage to squeeze into his head with only a few words; and that frightened Raito more than anything. The detective still had some power over him, he still had some control.

Enough, all he'd have to do is answer. It didn't matter what he said as long as he could leave straight after.

"I was just answering a question a friend of mine asked, you reminded me of him… It seemed like a good time to answer it." Raito shoved his pale hands into his coat pockets.

"Who was your friend?" asked L.

"It doesn't matter, he's dead. Like I said it was just a spur of the moment I suppose." Dark mahogany eyes looked out the window, sifting through the distant memories. He didn't notice the detective's eyes surveying his stained jacket.

"I'm sorry…" L actually meant it for once, he could tell it caused the man pain to remember it.

"Don't be, he knew perfectly well what he was doing. He wouldn't want pity, especially from you." Raito's eyes flicked back to the detective, a small frown on his face.

"What was the question?" L spoke the words softly so as not to force an answer out of him.

Raito's eyes became glazed and his voice was almost inaudible among the bustle of the coffee shop, _"Have you ever, once in your life told the truth?" _

L raised an eyebrow at the younger man; Raito simply shook his head and walked away from L. Halfway through the door he turned back towards the detective, his dark eyes full of pain; and then he was gone without a word of parting.

**Author's note: Holy crap! Ten pages of dialogue. That and Raito is so confusing that you have to explain every thing he says! **

**Ha. **

**If you review then, wonderful things will happen. **

**Speaking of which, should I have pairings or not? (I'm terrible at all romance and fluff just to warn you)**

**Review please. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: For pairings I'm still deciding what to do. Honestly I don't know… I'll decide when I get there. For the mean time I'll see what happens, thanks for the opinions.**

**Thank you to anyone who did read or review you all have special places in my heart (not really but it sounds good) **

**Sorry for the long update, I had kind of a brain collapse; aka: writers block hit me in the head with a meat cleaver and I lost my plot bunny. It took quite a while to find the little bugger, I'm not even sure if I caught the right one. (Too much of a metaphor?) **

**Also italics represent flash backs. Just so you know. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. **

_(Light Yagami- May 2010)_

_It was almost like walking into a dream, at first there was a sharp pain in his heart along with the dull throbbing of his throughout his arm and torso. And then he began to drift, slowly but surely away from the pain. The detachment was bliss, a weight had been taken from him. The scars and sores began to fall away into the blankness leaving nothing but a hollow relief. Soon the emptiness began to encompass his mind leaving him blank in the wide expanse of white. _

_Thoughts fluttered about in his mind like little butterflies, so full of color and life. So many beautiful colors; each vivid and unique but utterly unimportant. For even greater than his admiration of life was the hollow spot inside his withered soul, shrunken and deformed with years of ill treatment. _

_Soul… Ha, that was a laugh. Did he even qualify to have a soul? No of course not, he was a god. Nothing but a soulless god of death…_

_What had Ryuk called it? Mu? Nothingnes;, an odd term for the place. It wasn't as if there was nothing; it was more the lack of something, like a missing piece in a puzzle. Even the lack of something existed, acting as a heavy weight over him. _

_Ryuk… The thoughts were far away and faded; desperately trying to reach him, ringing in the distant like persistent bells. He was supposed to do something, something important… But what? He shifted, disconcerted at the lost memory. He attempted to ignore the unsettling thoughts but remained pestered. They wanted him to remember something, a name…_

_His mind shifted sluggishly, trying to get itself in gear. It seemed stiff and cobwebbed with lack of use. The gears slowly turned, caked with rust and dirt. After a few agonizing minutes the speed began to pick up and his mind started racing through his life searching for whatever material it could find. Light Yagami, that was the name; his name. He had forgotten it, why? How could he have, even for a moment forgotten his own name? _

_The nothingness shattered, like a mirror it broke into shards and began to drift apart as he fell through the newly formed abyss; clinging desperately to his own name even as he fell into the darkness. _

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_When he next woke he found himself in an expensively lavished room, the walls were lined with gold and jewels lay scattered on the desk in front of him. Whoever lived here spared no expense in riches or decoration. Eventually he found himself numbly viewing a faded red chair in the center of the room. Unlike the other items the room contained the chair was worn and grey with use. _

"_You really are pathetic aren't you?" The gravelly voice came from behind the chair, hiding the speaker from his view. _

"_Can't even speak, I honestly don't know why I even bother with you freaks." A dry laugh resounded throughout the room, Raito shivered at the sound. _

_The voice sighed impatiently, while Raito tried to remember why he was here. He was dead, that was an obvious. The lack of feeling in his limbs was a cruel reminder of being deceased. After he died he was supposed to go to Mu, Ryuk had made that clear. That bastard! He lied; he'd taken away the only truth in his life just to watch him struggle and beg! _

_But then again… Perhaps he hadn't been lying. There was a gap in Raito's memory, one he did not remember from before his death. Where he was before this was entirely beyond his grasp, it was simply gone. _

"_Not a talker, most of them are. Babbling all eternity away, 'oh woe is me I was possessed by a monster! 'Save me kami save me!' So loud and obnoxious, Halflings really are the scum of the earth. They all blame the same person you know, some new guy. Kira was it? Yes I believe it was, apparently this guy really got around. Killed people left and right, almost as notebook happy as a shinigami; if that were possible." Raito tried not to let his smug expression show. It was rather nice to be appreciated, "Don't think you're going to get out of it just by being quiet! You still get the same punishment as the rest of them." Punishment, oh joy. He'd already taken three bullets and a heart attack; no doubt it'd be fun to see what else somebody could dish out. _

"_Punishment? You speak as if I did something wrong." Somehow his voice sounded different, it sounded more distant and soft; hardly anything like he remembered. Then again he had just died; it couldn't have been too good on his senses._

"_That's for you to decide demon, not me. You killed people, isn't that considered a crime?" Raito decided he didn't like whatever sat in that chair. Whoever sat there was arrogant and ambitious, wallowing in wealth and riches. "Besides that you used a notebook belonging to a shinigami, did you think you'd get away without consequences? I can't exactly let you little monsters roam about heaven, so instead you have the option of Mu." Mu! That was where Ryuk said he would go. So it did exist then… _

_And deep down Raito knew he had been there, if only for a moment. But he had been there. And he could remember nothing of it; the only thing he could relate it to was when the death note wiped out his memories. This was hardly a comforting thought._

"_But seeing as I'm generous to all you little freaks I'll cut you a deal, you go back to Earth and save as many humans as you killed. If you succeed you don't have to go to Mu and can join all the other humans, if you fail you not only get sent back to Mu but what remains of you will belong to me. Do we have a deal?" Raito hated that cold curt tone, they were talking about his future and this person acted like it was all a waste. _

"_I can always send you back now if you like." Said the voice in an uncaring way; Raito gritted his teeth suppressing the boiling anger rising from the pit of his stomach. _

'_You didn't have to be a god you know; you could've been a doctor, or maybe a lawyer. Hell even a tobacco salesman would've been better than being play-god.' Nagged a childlike voice in the back of his skull. _

'_But no, you had to go be Kira; didn't you? Honestly the things you do to yourself, it's unbelievable.' Unbelievable, what was so unbelievable about trying to save the world? Was that so hard to grasp? Would anyone else have done any better; he used the cards he had been given, and he had played the best he could. What was so horrible about that? But still they had killed him, and oh how they had enjoyed it. _

_Humiliated, defeated, and destroyed, what more could anyone else do to him? He had been a god and now he was nothing but an insane killer; a monster that never should have been born. They were probably all glad he was dead now. He could just imagine the triumphant look and that brat's face, not even his real rival! Raito's red blood pooling around his body, his eyes no doubt clouded by death's cold touch. _His_ body abandoned to the cold earth, _his _blood dripping from the very hands that had weaved thousands of elaborate plots; his hands which now lay useless in the dust. _

_But if he had won he would've changed the world, no, he would've been a god. Someone celebrated for years after his death, the person who finally stopped all the murders and thieves and all other wicked people. It would have been a utopia, would have been… Those were the key words, and now. Now he was dead, dead and gone. It had all been such a waste, why had he even bothered in the first place? _

_No one can change the world, if god couldn't why should he have been able too? Such a foolish notion, he should've just left them all to their suffering and been done with it. Nobody understood, not one person had truly understood his goal. _

_All he had wanted was to save them, that was all that he had ever wanted. But they had killed him, they had watched him die. And why was that so hard to believe? After all he was Kira, it was his job to realize humanity was sick. Every last one of them was just as guilty as the other. _

_Maybe that's what L had been trying to show him; he had no right to judge between them, well now he wasn't. Now he knew that they had all deserved to die. Even he had deserved to die. He was the worst of them all, with his fake smiles and cold heart; he was the one who had deserved to die. He died because it had all been worthless; all those deaths had been completely and utterly worthless. Humanity could never be saved. _

_But he had learned an important lesson now; and he fully intended to take it deep within his icy heart._

"_We have a deal." Said Raito slowly, hating the desperate way it fell from his lips. For some reason he was terrified of going back to Mu, the nothingness there had consumed him; it had been a part of him. And that in itself was terrifying; whatever this… thing offered had to be better than being engulfed in that empty place in his memory._

"_Good, good; that's nice to hear. Most of the other fools who get deported take a lot longer to decide. They would still be screaming by now, probably about how unfair this all is." A paper and pen flew from the desk into his hand, "All you need to do now is sign your name, and be quick about it I don't have all day." _

"_My name?..." asked Raito in an almost inaudible whisper, for some reason the name he had remembered didn't sound like his name. He knew that it was his name, but for some reason it sounded wrong. Like two notes next to each other, clashing in discordance. _

"_Sign whatever name you can remember." The voice sounded bored. Raito picked up the pen and slowly wrote down the name onto the paper. Light Yagami, the kanji stared back at him but before he could even think the paper and pen again flew out of his hands. _

"_Light Yagami eh? Doesn't really suit you, I wouldn't think of you as 'night god'. Oh well, you aren't going to be using it anymore." The symbols that had rested on the page flew into a withered palm stretched out from behind the shadows. Raito felt a cold sensation in his chest, a slow cold feeling began to spread throughout the area of his heart, and it reached with long spindly fingers to caress down his spine. He started to tremble silently, he felt oddly light and hallow; his skin seemed to have grown thinner and he felt almost transparent in the cold dark room. _

_Without stopping the voice continued to speak, "You will be sent back to the point when you first lost the ability to be so charmingly human, no one will be able to see or hear you so don't even think about talking to those delightful little humans. You can't kill a human in order to save a different one; you also can't reveal you are a spirit. So no levitating objects or people, you got that pretty boy. Oh yes and if you cheat at all you will become human again but receive the wounds and inflictions that initially caused your death, if you don't understand this you'll figure it out eventually I'm sure." The withered voice sounded almost bored and spoke in a low monotone, they clearly had been over this speech before. Raito just raised an eye brow at most of the statements in there, when would he ever want to talk to another human again? Honest to god he hated them all. _

"_And if you start going insane, don't worry I'll send some people down to take care of it." Insanity, some would argue that he was already mad. How much farther could he go?_

_Before he could respond the room began to fade from his view, and he felt himself being dragged away again into a fog covered landscape… _

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(Naomi Misora- Present)

Dim twilight entered the room causing multi colored streams of light to reflect off the jewels kept on the mahogany desk. Naomi Misora ignored the light as she looked at the chair in front of her. It was always bizarre to get a call to come here, especially when you were human. For the most part spirits and humans left each other alone, it was somewhat troublesome to try to converse because they were just too different. That and the only one she had met acted like a bipolar ass hole, still she tried to keep an open mind.

After she had died she had realized that heaven wasn't exactly like most people had described it, in fact there were almost no similarities between the world she lived in now and the clouded white paradise that she had expected. The place she lived in now was busy and loud, to get from one area to another was a pain in itself. The streets were always plugged with people and bicycles (not too many people owned cars due to fear of global warming) merchants would sell apples and other earth delicacies to possible costumers, haggling in every known language. More than once she had been accosted by such venders to get her to buy some French wine or a fine antique stolen in a raid.

At first she had been lost and confused among the hustle and bustle of the overcrowded city, barely managing to make it to her apartment room intact. (Several times she had not made it back at all) But after things had settled down and she had gotten into the rhythm of her new life she noticed something odd. She had not seen Raye anywhere, in fact she had been looking for him since the day she had arrived and he was no where to be seen. At first she thought she might have missed him in the crowds, somehow managing to overlook the one face she loved. But over time it became clear that he wasn't there at all; it worried her to no end.

And adding to her troubles was this meeting, or whatever the hell it was. It had come out of nowhere; she had been sitting in her room eating take out Chinese food contemplating the fate of her fiancé and now she was talking to a spirit about some concealed business.

"So my little secretary is of some use after all, I thought he would take at least a month to get you here. And probably drag the wrong gal too. Nice to know he's not completely useless." The spirit's voice was rough and old, she couldn't decipher whether it was male or female. Personally Naomi didn't care; she just wanted to get out of the room with her body still intact.

"He just came this morning, I thought it best to leave before he started a riot with the people." Her neighbors hadn't been particularly happy when a blue haired elf appeared outside her door. It had been a miracle they had made it outside before he was killed by a series of frying pans in his backside.

"We have a problem, down on Earth. You see one of the Halflings has gotten too much freedom for his own good, I don't know how he did it, but he did. Seeing as you knew the guy I thought it best you track him down for me, bring him back here once you've got him." She gave a start at the creature's words; the only half spirit left was...

"Who is it?" asked the dead woman. She didn't need to ask, she knew who it was. She _knew_ who it was, and she had wanted revenge against him for so long it was almost too much to hope for.

"He's a little weird, didn't talk much to me. But you could see him plotting behind those golden eyes; he's a little devil I tell you; can't take your eyes off him for an instant. Said his name was Moon or Light er something or another, can't miss him." The spirit didn't seem too enthused and the words almost sounded bored. Naomi however hadn't missed a word; Yagami was the missing last name. And here was her chance at last, to make the bastard pay for everything he had ever done to her! Everything he had taken away from her! Not only her but the whole world would finally be rid of him.

She had ached for years to deliver justice, because if she couldn't have Raye then she would at least have Kira's head. It was only payback, completely just. She deserved at least this much and couldn't be blamed for whatever she did; some people just deserved what they get. Nobody cried when the villain was vanquished, nobody scolded the hero for their brave act. A happy ending for everyone.

Naomi's grey eyes lifted to the desk and she smiled, "When do I start?"

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(Raito- Present)

Raito had a problem, well there was always some issue or another but this time he meant it. For some unfathomable reason he kept having to get into awkward conversations with L. It was like someone found it funny making them accidently run into each other, well the joke was wearing thin and he was getting irritated. And it was a well known fact that you did not piss off Light Yagami without consequences. The name may have changed a bit over the years but the torture that ensued if the fools who refused to heed his warnings had not. For he always gave his warnings, always. Call it habit or etiquette but Raito felt that everyone deserved an adequate warning to get the hell away. And that included L, even though he hardly ever listened.

L just made things needlessly complicated; he didn't need anything more confusing to happen in his life. Hell he was already insane enough, he didn't need to lose what little sanity he had left.

And why should he?! He had already suffered through the detective once; he had no reason to go through that again. And hell he didn't want to, nope not in the least. All his logic was screaming at him to get far away from the detective, very far away. But still… some part of him always made him come back; he couldn't abandon L to the mercy of his former self. That would be needlessly cruel, even for him.

Sighing he looked once more at his reflection in the mirror. The pale figure shown in the glass was a far cry from what Light Yagami used to be. If Light was the sun then the reflection was starlight; outlined by the night's shadow, and glowing faintly from a distance. Too distant and bright to be a creature of the earth.

His eyes where before they had been a rich chocolate were now a dark mahogany that glowed with an inhuman intelligence. The dark eyes were fringed with shadows accessed from either lack of sleep or just being dead too long. Raito really wasn't sure which one would cause him to look like an insomniac, probably both.

The once perfect hair now hung askew against his finely chiseled features, the locks had become slightly darker and tinged red.

Overall he looked like a corpse in a trench coat. The gothic clothing that he was accessorized in certainly wasn't helping in the trying to look normal department. But at least he didn't look like a rotting zombie. That would have attracted some stares.

No the weirdest thing about his reflection was not the snow white skin, or the auburn eyes, or even the unnatural hair position. No that was all good and fine, what was really making him curious was the fact that all sign of his bullet wounds had somehow disappeared except for three fine little scars.

Scary? Yes.

Worrisome? Definitely.

Unexpected? No, not really.

He'd come back to life from the dead because he had forgotten to move out of the way when a tennis ball came flying towards him. And after that moment every small rule that Raito had lived by was flushed down the toilet. People talked to him. They _talked _to him! Not as if he were some invisible god, or an evil spirit, but like he was actually there! For so long they had looked past him, ignoring his cries for any sort of form of attention. And always, always, always they had overlooked him. Of course they had, nobody _wanted_ to see him. Human's would rather believe he was dead than admit that there was something out there they could not see. Pitiful creatures, blind in their wish to be ignorant.

And as soon as a single tennis ball had skewed with the fragments of reality everything had changed, his father treated him like a total stranger, (Well that wasn't entirely unexpected with their whole falling out.) L acting like he was some new puzzle, and Light wanted to kill him. They were all signs of the apocalypse!

It was all so bizarre. But again humans, what can you expect?

L didn't really want to know the answers to his questions. Not really, and deep with the dark trench that was his soul he must realize this too. He had to, after all they had been through he must still remember Raito. He must still feel the tension mounted between them, the wall of lies and deceit stretching for miles in both directions. Nothing had changed in that regard, they were still just as honest with each other as ever.

In some ways Raito felt L didn't know the world as much as he claimed. After all he was the one who claimed to be his _friend_. His friend, laughable right? The greatest detective in the world _friends_ with the world's greatest serial murderer. Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer; Ryuzaki took that statement a tad bit to literally. So much so that it killed him. That probably should have a moral, 'Don't trust people with red eyes!' Or 'Don't be stupid and chain yourself to a mass murderer whose goal in life is to kill you!' Any of those would have worked perfectly for the situation.

L acted hastily and he died because of it. He shouldn't have been in such a rush to catch Kira, maybe then he would've survived.

If it had been Raito in L's position things would have gone differently. He would've been laughing at Kira, his own people would kill him in time. Why rush the inevitable? Raito would have sat back and watched the show.

Sure there would've been violence and death. That's what humans do! They beat the crap out of each other, but that would've passed after Kira's death. Light never would have passed the death note on to an heir, L would have had nothing to worry about in that respect. Besides L wasn't justice either, why did he feel the need to protect humanity? It wasn't his place!

But he and L weren't so similar, not anymore at least. Things had changed so dramatically since his death. Things he had thought incapable of change, and yet everything had changed so much.

He should hate L, he should want to avoid his enemy more than anything. L was the last true rival, also the most dangerous. He shouldn't pity L, he shouldn't want to explain everything to him, he shouldn't try to talk to him. But he wanted to…

Oh how the times have changed.

**Author's note: Sorry for adding more confusion to the story, but it needed more action anyways. So this is my solution. And once again sorry for the super long update. Although it could be worse…**

**Now if you don't review I'll do something… I haven't thought of anything yet… Ummmmm… Review and I'll figure out what to do if you don't review. **


	9. Chapter 9

Author's note: Alas I have no doubt confused everyone to no end

**Author's note: Alas I have no doubt confused everyone to no end. Just when some of you were getting the story too… So sad. Ah well, that's life for you. XD **

**Oh and good news! I finally got the thirteenth volume of Death Note so I don't have to guess on dates and stuff. (Before this I just re-read the manga a million time to find a random hints to get dates right, sometimes I didn't even get those and just had to make the dates up. For example I knew that Light picked up the notebook in fall but I had no idea it was in November. Lucky guess.) **

**Thank you reviewers and others who support my random writing sprees. A.K.A my stories. You guys are what keep me going!**

**P.S. Sorry for the long wait, summer what can I say? If you want something done ask a busy man. I now know exactly what that means. Plus I got grabbed by the editing monster.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, and I never will. **

_(Naomi- three weeks prior)_

_Naomi hadn't known how long she had been dead when she decided to ask the spirits for help in her quest to find her fiancé. It was well known by the general public that the spirits held all the official documents for immigration and importation from the mortal realm. Where else to look for Raye but there? _

_Spirits were known for their reclusive behavior, distancing themselves from all mortal creatures; dead or alive were avoided at all costs. It was also said that they possessed the power to use magic and change form, of course that could have all been market place gossip. But now she was going to find out for herself._

_Inside her apartment room she spared one last glance on the lavender décor. If the gossip was correct she may never see this room ever again. She never again would walk into this room happy and content from her work in the heart of the city, never again would she collapse on her couch in utter exhaustion. Still, for Raye, it was all worth it in the end. Even if she failed it would be worth it, to know she had at least tried… _

_Taking a deep breath she opened the door towards the hallway, jutting up her chin she started to stride down the hallway with all the confidence she could fake. A dark mop of hair jutted itself out from a door way, the girl looked up and rubbed her chocolate eyes. _

"_Where you going Naomi? It's insane to be up at… three a.m. Do you have a boy friend or something?" the girl sounded tired. _

"_Something like that…" Naomi sighed and stared down at her feet. How was she going to explain what she was doing? What she was doing was far more insane than being up too early. _

"_Nn what ever, just don't be too loud when you get back. Some people enjoy sleep you know." Naomi smiled at the young girl's response, and even waved before the door was slammed shut again. Then turned back towards the end of the hallway, and continued her slow decent to the street below. _

_All the while she thought of what might have happened to Raye, had he gotten lost? Was he in some other city looking for her as well? Did he know that she too was dead? The questions spun her mind into a tangled mess of anxiety and hope. But somewhere deep down she knew something was terribly wrong. _

_Outside the crowded streets had thinned due to the early hours but still looked difficult to navigate. Pulling up her jacket to cover her face she began to work her way through the mob of people moving towards the center of the city, no one else headed towards the distant landscape of trees and forest. Only she dared to look to the spirit's realm for answers. _

_Soon the mob of people dwindled into a small stream then she found herself alone at the edge of the road, staring towards the expanse of forest in front of her. Dark greens grew into shadows in the night's glow, the leaves and branches swung ominously in an unseen breeze. _

_Thinking of Raye she stepped onto the green moss and carefully made her way towards the first of the trees, the multitude of buildings and sky scrapers shrank behind her as the darkness consumed the path. Tripping on several roots and stones she muttered curses to herself as she went deeper and deeper into the woods. If she had looked she would have noticed the bizarre color of the trees almost blue in the starless night. In some ways she would have considered it quite beautiful if not for her fear of the shadows. The trees and shadows seemed to watch and whisper about her, the hair stood on the back of her next as a branch waved in by her neck without the help of a breeze. _

_Then without warning a hand clamped onto her shoulder with surprising strength. Naomi gasped and flinched away from the contact. _

"_You're awfully loud you know, it's kind of annoying to listen to your tripping through the forest." Naomi shuddered as she looked at the figure who spoke. The being or whatever it was had a clear male voice but looked hardly human with winged shoulders and arms the color of smoke, dark hair cascaded down his back and ended at his hips, a small earring sparkled in the small amount of moonlight. He was at least six foot' four and towered above Naomi, his hand was pale with three sleek feathers; it rested lightly on her shoulder. _

"_What are you?" Asked Naomi struggling to get out the stammered words. The winged creature just stared at her in confusion, his head tilted to the side, blue eyes glinting in humor. _

"_Ouch, I'd prefer 'who' instead of 'what' you know. Some people are just so inconsiderate." The creature's form suddenly began to shrink and the wings drew back into the skin, the hair back into the head until it was a short and cropped. The brilliant blue eyes were closed in concentration, his lips curled into a content smile. The figure shrunk to be only a few inches taller than Naomi herself and the pale skin grew to a sun kissed tan. Slowly but surely the hair became a dull chestnut color he opened his eyes which now were a surprisingly clear chocolate color. He laughed at her dumbstruck expression, only his voice had remained the same. _

"_How did you do that?!" exclaimed Naomi still staring at the spirit in shock. The brown haired youth shrugged. _

"_It's nothing particularly special; humans aren't too hard to pull off. As long as you don't skip some of the major detaisl you're okay." His brown eyes examined her with curiosity. Naomi took a step back and bumped into a tall oak trunk, the brown haired youth quirked an eyebrow at her retreat. _

"_That's not exactly what I meant…" said Naomi in a voice that she hoped sounded brave. The boy's brow furrowed in thought then cleared as if suddenly finding his answer. Suddenly he was leaning on the tree trunk next to her fingering her dark hair with a rueful smile on his face. She swiftly backed away from him again._

"_You mean the ability to change form? Well, it's not as difficult as it looks; really. It's all an illusion; I'm just as much of a shape shifter as you are." He laughed at her disbelieving expression, "How to explain it… This is a little tricky; I've never really had to put this into words before. You see, I'm not bound to a physical body like you are, instead I have the ability to change what I look like, and it's the only way to converse with you humans… You look confused." The spirit finished his explanation with an exasperated sigh, Naomi was more than confused. Her head was reeling with this new information, and almost all of it had gone over her head. _

"_But enough about me; how about you? Why are you here?" He poked her just below her collar bone. _

"_I'm looking for someone…"She muttered softly. _

"_Well, I can't help you there. You'll have to be a little bit more specific." Answered the spirit putting his tanned hands on his hips. _

"_My fiancé actually, he came through the gates only a few weeks before I did. But I haven't seen him anywhere. He would've looked for me I know it! I just I need to know he's okay…" The panic entered her voice as she pictured her fiancé as she had last seen him, exhausted and stressed with the new case and the hijacked bus. The spirit's head jerked up and he backed up from her with a cry of rage. The kindly brown eyes darkened to a pitiless charcoal. _

"_Oh no, you're one of those people! Damn I knew it! I just KNEW it! This is because of my karma isn't it! Holy crap it's finally caught up to me, damn, damn, DAMN!" The spirit cursed and buried his face in one of his hands, which began to lose its tanned beauty beneath what looked like glossy black fur. Naomi stood transfixed staring at the spirit's transformation as he continued to lament._

"_Great, let me guess you are going to get me to show you where your husband's paper work is. Do you know how long this will take?! Only the brave of heart dare to search through the years of paper work stacked up in there! And they only do it because they're insane!" The deity had now grown obsidian talons and fangs along with dark fur that trailed up into his ink black hair. His voice no longer sounded clear but strained and husky but undeniably the same voice. _

"_Please I need to find him! If I don't, I… I can't… live with the fact that I could've helped! If I hadn't talked to that clever bastard then maybe he'd still be avenged, maybe it wouldn't have been for nothing. You have to help me!" Naomi pleaded tears beginning to spill out her eyes. The wolf man was near complete in his transformation his eyes mere slits in the darkness. He crouched near the trees glaring at her, white fangs bared._

"_Are you sure he didn't run off with your best friend or something? You humans have a habit of doing stuff like that." He laughed at his own statement; but Naomi refused to leave and curled her fists. Where only moments before the being had treated her warmly, he had become hostile and cold with only one request. She began shaking in fear as she saw the newly formed muscles beneath the surface of his skin. The strength in his eyes was undeniable she wouldn't survive even one swipe of those claws. _

_Swallowing her fear she took a step forward and stammered out her next words, "If you do this for me then I will be forever in your debt. I've heard that spirits can't go back to Earth, I know that I can. You must want something from there, everyone I know seems too. Why should you be any different?" The spirit turned towards her, and rocked back onto his heels. The fur slowly receded back into its original position, swaying down his back in thick locks. The ears became pointed once more and his eyes lost their cold vigor and softened. He looked at her with such a strong amount of pity that she almost regretted what she had said. _

_The truth was she hardly knew anything about spirits, much less if they did go to the human world or not. It was never really of much interest to her, but now she had obviously revealed more than she meant to in the bluff. But he didn't appear to doubt her as his gaze grew even more intense. _

"_You would do that; you would bind yourself to a spirit?" He straightened up and approached her with a hesitant expression. "If you make a promise to a spirit it cannot be broken. Promises are shackles for us; they are not taken lightly. You may never again be truly free." He reached out towards her arm then stopped, looking back up into her eyes and nodded once to himself._

"_I suppose I will help you then, to find your dear lover. It should be interesting I think." He held out a pale hand out towards Naomi, she hesitantly took it and felt herself being whisked deeper into the shadows._

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(Raito- Present)

There were times when Raito wondered what had happened to his infamous intelligence. That glorious device that had landed him into college with a 4.0; and got him through six years worth of murder. Sure it caused a few problems now and then; but it still was worth having. In fact Raito prided himself on his I.Q. as one of his only redeeming qualities; probably the only redeeming quality if he wanted to think about it. And after two thousand five hundred sixty three years of living in hell you think he'd be even more knowledgeable. Hell he thought he would be.

So why couldn't he think like a genius? Where were the scheming plans when he really needed them?! His intelligence and his sanity both seemed to have decided to ride off into sunset leaving him in the dust. DAMN THEM BOTH TO HELL!

Luckily for Raito intelligence wasn't exactly needed in his life as a ghost. Normally that is. In fact he hadn't even thought about it until now.

But he had questions needing answering. Who felt the need to screw with his life? (It was obvious that someone was if you added up all the crap that kept happening) Why did L keep stalking him? When was he going to be able to think straight again?!

Not only that but something was coming up, something was going to happen soon. Something bad. Very bad. And here he was stuck like a mac downloading Sims, stuck thinking about L. To hell with L, Raito had his own problems. Or at least he thought he should.

"Stop that! You do not care about L! L can go to hell and stay there! You have your own problems! One thing at a time Raito, one thing at a time! And L is not on that list!" Raito lapsed into silence, waiting for the answer to come to him.

And waiting…

And… Oh crap there was that damn detective again.

"Focus Raito, just stay focused. And goddammit stop talking to yourself before someone calls the men it white jackets! Who cares about some insomniac who happens to be a closet pervert, you don't! No of course you don't! Nobody cares about that bastard, certainly not you! Hell, you don't even care about yourself! Just take a deep breath, and cleanse your mind of all annoying insomniac detectives with the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet for a first name! I mean what the hell were his parents taking anyway?! L?! Even my parents weren't that… Stop it!" Raito took a deep breath and let it out. His eyes closed lightly as he tried to concentrate on what he was supposed to be thinking about. Unfortunately it didn't work.

"Damn, damn, damn! This is what you are good at Yagami! Use your head and think like a man!" Raito squeezed his eyes shut and recapped the previous events.

He had a heart attack. Nothing new, but still annoying. After that he had miraculously survived and made it to the hospital where he was roomed with his own father. Also annoying. After that he had left the hospital and stole the majority of his old death note leaving Light with only fragments.

But during his original life Misa had attacked the media only a few days after Soichiro's heart attack. That must have been it.

"Misa! That was it. Oh great, Misa. Just what I need." Raito felt like banging his head against the table he was currently sitting at.

After leaving L stranded at the coffee shop he had walked around a park for a little while… alright he waited for L to leave then once again went inside the coffee shop pick pocketing the occasional customer for the money that would allow him to buy coffee.

It's not as if he had anything better to do, Raito's life revolved around the point that nobody cared what the hell he did. But so much freedom was disconcerting at times. Alright it was hell of creepy, not that he would admit that to anyone.

"To hell with Misa, why should I even bother saving her worthless ass this time? It's not my problem she's an idiot. Certainly not my problem if she gets caught in the act. You know what, I'm not going. Nope. I'm just gonna sit here and drink my coffee and laugh when she does get caught. I will laugh." Raito nodded his head once confirming his decision.

But then again, if he didn't go Light and Misa would most likely team up. In fact Light would be sure to hide Misa's notebook in a place no one would dream of. He'd have a lot more trouble tracking it down after that. Besides if he didn't then all those people would die, and there he would be drinking some cold coffee.

Not only that but he might have to deal with the detective again if he didn't, after all he'd have to use his resources to keep an eye on Light. And who knows what he'd say then, he could just envision the conversation,

'Hi L, guess what? I'm Light Yagami six years in the future, oh and dead. Did I mention I'm dead? Funny how that happens. I also was Kira and I killed you, you were right the whole time. Isn't that wonderful?'

That conversation was not one he wanted to have anytime soon, so that left one option. Stop Light and Misa by obtaining and burning their death notes while he still had the chance. And to set the base work for that he'd need those tapes from Sakura in L's capable (if not pale) hands.

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Ukita sped down the highway, desperate to reach the television station and shut off the broadcast. Kira, what the hell was the bastard doing?! Black mailing the police, killing off news anchors, it was high time the man was put away for good.

The tension in his black car grew to the point where he could practically scream.

Just ten minutes ago he had left the investigation headquarters. Everyone had been just as nervous and stressed as him, even L had lost his normal monotone and had been chewing off every hang nail he had. If Kira's broadcast continued then the police would have hell to pay.

Ukita ground his teeth together counting down the seconds till he would reach the station. He could see the brightly lit driveway ahead, only a minute and he could stop it. Or at least that's how it would have panned out if not for a loud thumping noise.

"Haven't you heard of _breaks_ asshole?!" the shout came from right in front of his car. Ukita sat for a moment trying to comprehend what had just happened.

"I just got _out_ of the hospital! Aren't you even going to apologize for practically running me over?!" A pale hand slammed down onto the hood of his car causing Ukita to jump out of his seat after fumbling with his seat belt.

Yanking open the door hastily he ran out to the front of the car to find a young man leaning on the hood of his car trying to pull himself up. It was no wonder he hadn't seen him, the man was dressed only in black.

"Staring at me is not going to get rid of me. Just thought you'd like to know." With one final push the man managed to get upright. Ukita could only stare at the man with shock, how had he gotten there?

"How... How did you get there?!" Stammered the detective.

"I walked. Mind lending a hand? If we want to get there before more police men die we'll have to book it. In fact, if you hadn't just about ran me over I think I _might_ have made it in time. _Might_. What?"

"I know you from somewhere." Ukita pointed a finger at the pale stranger. He knew that voice. Not well, but he certainly knew it from somewhere.

"Oh for god's sake, yes, you do. But unfortunately this is _my_ hell, not yours. So considering that, why don't you get in that blasted car and start being useful before I shoot myself." The man left Ukita standing, confused, at the front of the car while he opened the drivers seat door and jumped inside.

"What are you doing?!" Ukita hurriedly opened up the drivers door again. Today did not seem to be his day.

"Nathanial." Said the man coolly, his red brown eyes glinting at some inside joke.

"What?" Ukita felt his forehead wrinkle in confused frustration, he'd been so close to stopping the broadcast and now he had an unwanted hitch hiker. The said hitch hiker dusted off his jacket and gripped the steering wheel loosely.

"The name you can call me is Nathanial. No, it's not my real name, but it does the job." Nathanial breathed out slowly before starting the ignition. His hand stalled over the clutch before he moved it into drive.

"What's your real name then?" asked Ukita.

"Am I really going to have to leave you here? Or are you going to quit asking useless questions and get your ass in the car?" Ukita rushed to the other side of the car fumbling with his seat belt, sweat dripped down his face. He heard an exasperated sigh from across from him. As soon as his seatbelt clicked in place the car lurched forward.

"Oh don't look so frightened officer; it's not as if I'm about to crash. Of course this is my first time driving in about five hundred years; I used to be a fan of grand theft auto. You should try it some time. The trick is not getting caught." The man laughed at Ukita's seasick expression.

The auburn haired man clutched the wheel with a fierce excitement and a hungry look, "I forgot how fun driving was! I've missed this; I need to get another car." He let out a cry of triumph as he narrowly avoided hitting a car.

Nathanial abruptly jerked his hand causing the vehicle to nearly swerve into a pole, before Ukita could comment the car was in reverse and racing down the freeway. Ukita felt his eyes widen in horror as the speedometer twitched a little past one hundred.

"Grand theft auto?" asked Ukita hesitantly, his voice cracking with panic as he watched the barely missed obstacles flying by. He needed to get this lunatic out the car and safely store him away in a prison cell, a nice padded cell.

"Very entertaining." The red haired man smiled reassuringly before glancing back at the road. He abruptly slammed on the breaks and swore.

Ukita's head slammed forward into the dash board, he groaned and rubbed his forehead as he glared at the man opposite him.

"What the hell was that?!" Ukita felt a surprisingly strong urge to strangle the hitch hiker with all his strength.

"I forgot that you're incredibly stupid and will most likely kill yourself if we go to the front entrance (And to be honest we may have missed the exit). Can't trust anyone to do something intelligent can you? Leave them the option of saving their ass or run straight into the lion's den what do they do?"

"Um."

"It's unbelievably irritating, you see this is why I never should have bothered. You watch, it's going to flog me with a crowbar some day, this unconditional selfishness."

"Er."

"For once I wish that maybe I could have cared more about other people. Then I wouldn't be in this mess. Well, maybe I would…. But really somebody would've killed me _much _sooner."

"_Killed _you?"

The younger man stopped his ranting and looked over at Ukita. He closed his eyes and hit his head against the driver's wheel.

"I forget that people can hear me now, sometimes its nice being ignored. You, drive." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and dangled them in front of Ukita's hand.

"You mean I get my car back?"

"Yup."

Ukita reached for the keys in unspoken relief, he could finally get this freak out of his car and get those tapes back.

"On one condition." Nathanial yanked the keys back with a smirk.

Ukita glowered and mentally cursed the stranger, what did he want now.

"You have to cover your face when you go to the front entrance. This is for your safety, well actually no it's so I can save my own ass. But still, it's a win-win situation; you live I get to be hero-of-the-day. Everybody's happy!" Nathanial beamed down at him as if he were some hungry child receiving a life time supply of food. Damn him. Ukita shut his eyes in frustration and hit his head against the dash board.

"Isn't that interesting? I never figured you to be a masochist, stubborn, stupid, head strong, but masochist…" Ukita head snapped to the left as he saw Nathanial not in the driver's seat but leaning casually outside the window. How had he managed to get out of the car so fast?

"It's called talent, practice, and boredom. It makes a man excel in practically anything." Raising up his hand Nathanial gave a little wave and stepped back from the car and started jogging off towards the television station.

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Raito pushed his hair out of his eyes, once again questioning what in the world he was doing here. He didn't even like Misa, or L, or Watari, or anyone. Even his own father was in the category of people he didn't like. And yet, here he was; once again trying to save their asses.

Of course there was always the second less desirable option, being romantic. He shuddered as he thought of trying to seduce Misa who would most likely lead to a lot of pain. And the other candidates weren't much better in that regard.

Let's see there was the talkative-miss-Takada who sighed at his every word, (although considering how he must look right now she might just pull out the pepper-spray instead) then there was the magnificent-Mikami who worshipped him as a god. (Then again he might also pull out the pepper spray and then proceed to kick him in the shins)

This was why romance was a last ditch effort. It was stupid, pointless, and most importantly of all it was painful. Both physically and mentally.

He had seen hearts torn in half; twisted into submission while the owner looked up in gratitude. With a smile he had stolen their lives away from them like the little thief he constantly praised himself for being. It would be so easy to slip back into those shoes, to once more take hold of his puppet's strings and force them to dance.

But Raito didn't want to be a god anymore; he only wanted to be human.

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Demegawa smirked at the computer screen in front of him, his mood escalating to a new high. Beside him his workers continued monitoring the screens showing the Kira tape's progress. It was like a gift from god. Hell, it probably _was _a gift from the gods.

When Kira had first shown up Demegawa knew his ship had come in, everyone wanted to hear about what the psychopath was up to. He was like a celebrity, only better, you didn't have to deal with this guy in person. All you had to do was just talk about a few horrible deaths and bang, you had a hit! But even that got boring after a while, so when four tapes arrived in a manila folder addressed to him he was practically praising Kira's name.

The man even martyred Sakura by holding them hostage and threatening to kill them. God bless the man, god bless him and his holy powers of destruction. He couldn't have made Sakura look any better. And with the ratings he'd pull in, no one would ever doubt Sakura again.

"Freeze scumbag!" The doors burst open and a sweaty teenager stepped inside. Or at least he looked like a teenager, auburn hair clung to his forehead and his eyes seemed almost red in the lighting.

"Turn off the broadcast before I bash your head in." wheezed out the youth before hunching over in the door way. He wore a dark trench coat that accentuated his pale skin.

"Do you really want brain damage? Or will you be sensible and turn off the dammed tape?" said the youth while panting and muttering something about air conditioning vents.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Demegawa, fairly sure that the youth couldn't be police.

"That depends; I am your judge, your lawyer, and possibly your executioner. But like I said it really all depends on what you do next." The youth straightened up and took a step towards the television director. Demegawa felt himself move backwards.

"There's nothing I can do! We're all being held hostage by Kira if we stop now we'll be killed!" shouted Demegawa afraid of the steely contempt in the intruder's eyes.

"Are your excuses normally so flimsy?" asked the auburn haired teen closing the distance between them his pale hands outstretched in what looked like a peace offering.

"Uh today's video just finished…" said one of the employees by the screen. The younger man's head whipped towards the worker and then back to Demegawa.

"Oh goodie, then you can hand over all the tapes to me oh and the package too. That would be nice." The man shoved his hand forward with an open palm, waiting. Arrogant bastard!

"But we'll be killed if we do that! Kira will kill all of us!" The man didn't look amused in the least and sighed in exasperation.

"Why do negotiations always end in violence?" He asked the ceiling.

"What do you mean-" Before Demegawa could finish a fist slammed into his face sending him to the ground.

"You know I really don't care whether you die or not, after all who would miss you?" The auburn haired youth kicked him in the stomach and laughed. "But I'd rather see you die right now than later… unless… you hand over those tapes."

"What do you think you're doing, you're crazy, you can't threaten me like this!" screamed the director.

"Oh yes I can! I'm insane remember? I can do anything I want. And right now I want those tapes." The hand was held out again the pale youth smirked down with the same steely contempt as before.

"Don't kill me! I'll get you the tapes just don't kill me." Huffed out Demegawa grasping for the table, the young man stepped back giving him room to stand up and feel his bruised face.

Producing four tapes and the envelope Demegawa handed them to the youth who placed them carefully in his coat but his left hand still remained upturned.

"I'd like the copies as well." He said his voice sounding faintly frustrated. Seeing no action from Demegawa he closed his fist and raised it again.

"Fine! Fine! I'm getting them right now. You're insane, you're totally insane!" screamed Demegawa riffling through the bag for the copies.

"I know, believe me I know."

**Author's note: Mwahahaha cliff hanger! (Actually it was just getting two long, I had to split it up)**

**I am so evil sometimes! In the meantime take a break push the little button on the bottom left corner of the page. Write a review, it's fast and it's easy. Plus if you review you'll get a cookie! **

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	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note: I'm sorry for not updating sooner. Before I wasn't busy enough, now I'm TOO busy. I haven't checked my e-mail in days. Very bad. When I got to looking it was flooded. I really need to get a second account. **

**To those of you who wanted to see L last chapter he's here in this one, last chapter was getting pretty long compared to my others so I had to shorten it up. Again, I need to be slightly less verbose maybe that would make updating faster.**

**Thank you to reviewers and readers you make my heart burst with happiness. HEART ATTACK! (keels over) **

**Disclaimer: I can't say I've ever owned death note. I can't say I ever will. **

_Naomi reached out a hand to stroke the grey stone that encased the large chamber. The air tasted damp and smelled like mold. Beside her the spirit sighed and shook his head. _

"_Is this it?" She asked. He looked at her and cocked his head, arching a single eyebrow. _

_After their flight through the woods he had shed his bird form for the brown haired youth he had been earlier. The youth had lead her through winding tunnels and cold passageways, after what seemed an eternity they had entered a dark room only lit by a small ball of light floating just below the ceiling. _

_It was just enough light to see the mess of papers scattered about the floor. Millions of sheets were stacked in small mountains. And now the two of them stood there staring at the impossible task that Naomi had placed upon herself._

_The boy's expression seemed almost bored as he surveyed the scene in front of them. _

"_You wanted to look for his paper work, well here it is! Somewhere… in this huge pile… that no one's touched for five thousand years…" He winced and pulled a hand through his hair. A tanned foot reached out and poked a stack causing the entire thing to collapse sideways. _

_Feeling pressured she snapped at the boy, "And do you have to be that little boy again, is that the only thing you can do?!" _

_He turned and stared at her, he blinked once, twice. Then he looked back down at himself. _

"_You don't like this form?" he asked in an all too innocent voice. Naomi groaned in exasperation._

"_No it's just the same boy as last time!" Her words came out sharp and loud echoing throughout the vast corridors. _

"_So?" _

"_Can't you do anything else more original?!" Her words actually had some affect this time. His expression changed immediately to match Naomi's angered glare. _

"_Of course I can, don't be ridiculous. It takes less time if I turn into something I recently do, less thinking involved. Besides I'm sure you'd love to have a conversation with Godzilla." His hair immediately grew thinner falling to one side of his face while his skin grew paler in the light. Naomi looked back to the papers, somewhere in there it would say if her husband had indeed entered heaven. _

"_I thought you said it was organized." She fell to her knees and picked up a paper with unintelligible scribble all over it. "I can't even read it." _

_The boy stopped his metamorphoses and glanced over her shoulder at the dark print. _

"_It _is_ organized, chronological order. Front is the latest stuff the back is… no one's ever made it to the back." He deepened his voice in an attempt to sound eerie. Naomi just glared at the sheet of paper. _

"_That's nice to hear." Her voice sounded far too heavy with sarcasm; hopefully Raye wouldn't be in the back… _

"_Oh don't worry there are dates on the pages, we're not that much of slobs. So just find the date of your death and work from there." He smiled at her picking up a sheet of paper. _

"_Don't spirits ever look at these papers; I mean why else would you keep them?" She motioned towards the great void of flimsy white sheets. _

"_Oh same thing as usual, we made a promise and now we have to keep it. This is our version of a loophole; we'd prefer to be in a pigsty than to be slaves to our own bargains." His voice deepened sounding almost mournful to Naomi, she shook her head. What did she know of spirit's emotions? _

"_Still, does it have to be this messy?" She honestly didn't understand these creatures. Besides spirits the only other non-human beings she had heard of were shinigami, and even they weren't so hard to understand. _

"_We don't have free will often, when we do we exercise it to our full advantage. That's why it's a little weird for you to make a bargain so easily with a spirit; you too are held to more than just your word now." They looked at each other. Naomi sighed and picked up a paper making out the scribble of a date and moving on to the next one. _

_For hours she toiled in paper work accumulated over thousands of years, all the while the brown eyed boy watched her tapping his fingers slowly against the stone work. Once in a while she would ask a question which he would answer cryptically. But overall the room remained silent until Naomi reached the final point. _

"_This is impossible." Her bangs stuck to her forehead, dripping with sweat. The boy started by the wall. _

"_What is it now?" He groaned and trudged over to her position on the floor holding a thin piece of paper. _

"_There has to be some mistake!" She waved the white paper in front of the boy's face. _

"_We don't make mistakes unless we mean it; it's not quite our style. What are you accusing us of now human?" She dropped the paper and tore off of the near by piles searching frantically for the name. _

"_I can't find him, the date is right but he's not anywhere!" The panic swelled up inside of her bubbling to the surface. She couldn't have come all this way for nothing! Spend what seemed like an eternity with a bipolar ghost with pedophiliac tendencies for absolutely nothing!_

"_Oh you mean lover boy, you know I feel kinda bad for him. Must be hell to be married to you, so demanding, and loud. And the anger, mustn't forget the fiery temper." He shuddered but Naomi ignored him still sifting wildly through the piles of papers. _

_His head snapped down towards her suddenly, "Your husband's name, it wasn't Light was it?" His eyes blazed with a cold emotion Naomi couldn't place. _

_Naomi's hand froze above a collapsed mound, her breath caught inside of her throat. She turned to stare at the boy, consumed by the ominous foreboding that was beginning to rise in her mind. _

"_No… His name was Raye." He didn't look relieved by the truth. He grunted in acceptance, his hair turned darker and the skin grew a sickly blue. _

"_Good, if it was Yagami I might have had to break my word. I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest; another clause in our almost perfect nature, we lie. There is one other fate that can befall humans, you might not like it though." He turned away from her now, growing thinner by the second shadows swirled around him._

"_So it's true then, you have told me nothing! You are an asshole, a bipolar asshole, if you could control your emotions for one moment maybe you could have thought to tell me all this earlier!" Now she knew why people were driven to murder, if it would have done any good she would have shot the inhuman bastard a long time ago._

"_Follow me." He turned on his heel and strutted out the room, not waiting for Naomi to get up from the floor. Whether it was her insults or some other factor the spirit was now quiet and distant for which she was eternally greatful. Small wonder no one came to them for help._

_She scrambled up from the floor running to catch up with the deity before she lost him, she sprinted through the corridors following the trail of shadows left in his wake. She wasn't paying attention to her surroundings so she was surprised when she tripped and fell onto the dark eyed boy. _

"_Watch your step." He pulled roughly on her wrist dragging her to her feet. Her knees stung with the impact she had made with the floor. He looked away walking towards a table in the center of the new room. _

_The cavern looked surprisingly similar to the one she had been in, except instead of papers the floors were littered with books. The boy moved and picked one especially thick volume labeled with strange symbols. _

"_What's that?" She asked, he looked up a scowl still masking most of his features. _

"_The history of half-spirits. Halflings as I call them." He turned a yellowing page in the book, "You may call them something else, been called just about everything over the years. Demons, vampires, wraiths, gods, super-models been just about everything you can think of." _

"_Raye is not a super-model, is there a point to this little section of our tour is this another useless stack of papers." Naomi clenched her fist nervously around the tail of her shirt, she didn't like the sour tone in the spirit's voice. _

"_Hey this is a book! Very different from the date of entries into the realms of heaven and hell. This while has a lot of names and dates is a record of what Halflings are like while they prowl around the earth." He gave out a harsh laugh, the pages continued to fly. _

"_What is a half-spirit anyways?" He stopped turning the pages, his eyes lifted up to hers. He glared at her his eyes burning with a passionate anger. _

"_Exactly that, half spirits. Humans who have forsaken their humanity to be a spirit. Selfish creatures, to low even to bow to dust." Flames danced around his ankles, licking his legs as they climbed towards his eyes. _

"_There are several ways in which a half spirit is born. One way is the obvious, spirit and human hook up and well I'm sure you can guess the rest. Not very pretty I assure you. The other way is for a human to use an object possessed by a spirit or to become possessed by a spirit themselves. Whatever the cause they're not welcome here, and I'll make sure they never are." His teeth ground together in the venom he must feel towards whatever these people were. _

"_And you think Raye is…" She droned off, her sentence didn't need to be finished. _

"_Smart girl." He laughed cruelly and flipped a final page, "Here we are now, Raye Pember: Exterminated. Personally I think it's an achievement, he'd have been a disgrace anyways." He slammed the book shut, and dropped it on another stack of books. He stomped past Naomi clearly meaning to leave her behind in the labyrinth. _

"_Exterminated?! What are you talking about?! Did you kill my fiancé you little devil-child!" She had never really liked this guy but if he had killed Raye forget all politeness she might have to try to stuff him in a bottle. _

"_What no! I didn't kill him, I mean too messy, death is disgusting, ew so many decomposing bodies. No it's just a technical term for when spirits go… nuts and have to be taken care of... It means he is nothing, never was, never is, never will be. The scientific name for the place is Mu, but you wouldn't know that. After a while half spirits can get a little rowdy, all the more reason to get rid of them. They're almost all gone now, all except Light Yagami the sly little demon. And as you can see everyone has issues getting rid of him." The spirit gritted his teeth while saying the name and once more began to change shape from the depressed looking child to a mocking image of Light Yagami. _

"_Well, if Raye is 'dead' why is it so hard to get rid of him?" Said Naomi in an equally dispassionate voice, her teeth also clenched together in rage. _

"_Hey we've tried, but he's insane proof or something. I don't know, but nobody can get to that guy. Every time we try nothing happens, nothing. I'd like to see you try sister, go ahead and _try_." The fake Light Yagami stuck out his tounge at Naomi, but her mind was on a completely different track. _

"_Well why don't I? After all it is his fault that Raye is dead. That I am dead; his fault that thousands of people are dead. In fact I'd rather like seeing him get what he deserves, to rot in an unmarked grave." She couldn't get Raye back, from what the bipolar-demon said but perhaps she could still get revenge. It was too late to get Kira in jail but it wasn't too late to get him off the streets._

"_Wait, what did you say? You want to get rid of… You know that's impossible right? He'll have you back here within a month I guarantee it, he has that place so tightly wired… You aren't listening. Hello, crazy lady!" The spirit waved his hands about wildly then sighed in defeat when she wasn't listening. "Fine, whatever, ruin your life why don't you? Just when you get down there remember that I told you it was a bad idea. And make sure to bring back Yagami's head."_

"_I suppose you aren't completely useless after all."_

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Practically skipping out of the room Raito smiled to himself. He patted his pocket which stowed both the tapes and the envelope and whistled a tune. Things were turning out better than he'd hoped. Now that he'd dealt with Demegawa Ukita would survive and he'd have successfully saved his life. One more down and about a thousand or so more to go.

Still, things could have been worse. Ukita could have actually injured him when he hit him with the car. While he could feel the bruises forming on his leg he knew they wouldn't really start hurting until the next day. And soon the tapes would be out of his and Demegawa's reach, he'd give them to Ukita who would no doubt hand them over to L. Sure L was a paranoid asshole but he dealt with evidence efficiently enough, and besides it wasn't like Raito had any use for those tapes.

Turning a corner in a hallway he looked outside through the unbroken glass doors. Now all he had to do was cover his face and walk out the door, easy as pie. Or at least that's how it should have been.

If Soichiro hadn't crashed into the same doors with an armored truck nearly running over a security guard and running into Raito. The second car-hits-pedestrian-accident he had been involved in that day, hell same hour!

"Why the hell does this always happen to _me_?! Am I really that evil? Do I deserve all this pain?" Raito pretended not to notice the ominous answer to his thoughts that yes, most people deemed he did.

Soichiro walked out of the car with some sort of jacket on his head panting from effort, well it had to be said getting up after a heart attack was not the easiest thing in the world. Raito would know, but then again Soichiro hadn't been shot.

"Where are they airing the Kira tapes!" Soichiro's voice was hoarse with the stress he was no doubt feeling. Raito grimaced, he knew he felt worse. Had Soichiro been run over by two cars recently? Let's see…. No.

"Hey old man, you're too late if they haven't been destroyed by your senile-style driving then I got them." Raito weakly raised a hand while pulling out the folder from his coat pocket. Soichiro's head whipped over to Raito instantly. His face fell as soon as he saw him.

"Lawilett-san?! You have the tapes" asked the stunned police officer. Well what did he expect, the Dali lama?

"Not so loud, I have ears you know. Those flappy things on the side of your head tend to be sensitive when you're young. I know you're old and senile but please, feel a young man's pain." Raito attempted to prop himself up on his sore arms, armored trucks hurt much more than your normal car. Young may have been stretching it, after all two thousand years was a long time. But Soichiro didn't know that.

"What are you doing here?" Did his father always ask such stupid questions or was this a new thing? He couldn't remember at the moment.

"See, this is what I mean. You don't even acknowledge my previous sentence and instead start a conversation that clearly is irrelevant and redundant as I already told you why I was here. What about you Yagami-san? Shouldn't you be recovering in the hospital?" Raito watched as Soichiro's face changed from shock, to confusion, to a rather defensive expression. The joys of talking to humans were few and far between, the only one he had exercised lately was messing with their thick heads.

"I am not old! And I don't need to go to the hospital! What about you? Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" Soichiro's left eye twitched. Well at least he knew he should be recovering. Raito had done the same thing lots of times, like the time he had accidently jumped off a building. Strangely enough he had survived that, it had just led to complications when he actually had to get up and walk. He had never crawled so much in his life.

"Hospitals are for the senile, and I while I am elderly I am far from being decrepit and mindless. But all that aside I have to go, you know places to be people to see. So on and so on. Besides I'd just be in the way." Too right he would be. The last thing Raito wanted was the nosy-detective to decide to play twenty questions.

As Raito attempted to stand up he put his weight on his left leg and cried out in pain. The second wreck must have done it, he probably broke something. Judging by how fast the bullet wounds healed it would take at least a day for it to go back to normal. He wouldn't be running anywhere on his own for at least twenty-four hours. Dammit there went his getaway plan. Being dead and accident prone screwed everything up! Not to mention nothing made sense anymore.

"Where do you think you're going? You can't even walk!" Soichiro the moral detective glanced at him concern. It was true the man thought he was weird but he must not want to see him in pain. How sweet.

"Hey at least I don't have arthritis you old fool! I can crawl wherever I want, I can limp wherever I want, and I don't have to take any medication for aches and pains! And besides that I would rather drag my way through an iron maiden then once again be forced into a hospital and deemed criminally insane. So eat that old man, _eat it_. I went there, I _went _there. I went there, went back and bought a time share in Mexico. And I did it without going to the hospital!" While going on this rant, Raito had the peculiar feeling that he had lost the police chief three sentences ago.

True to his insight Soichiro didn't appear too enlightened by these bouts of complaints nor did he seem entirely interested. The man instead walked over to Raito, who had fallen back onto the ground during his speech, and helped to lift him up from his bent over position against the crushed armored crush.

"This means nothing. And if you take me to the hospital I'll say you're my abusive uncle." Muttered Raito while leaning heavily on the older man's shoulder. Soichiro nodded, and then looked back outside. He probably didn't hear a word Raito said, being too busy keeping on his feet. It probably wasn't too good to use the man as a crutch considering both of them were falling over Raito figured he needed it more.

"There's no way we can go back out that way now." Soichiro observing the armored truck with a furrowed brow. The crushed vehicle looked more like a stack of deformed pancakes then the iron safe it had been before, where before the crash it had looked as if it could withstand an atom bomb now it looked like it would fall apart if a fly landed on it.

"Sure we can, the car's not that bad. I've driven worse." Raito nodded towards the crumpled vehicle. Soichiro had no idea he was dealing with an expert getaway driver. When the going gets tough Raito gets going in the opposite direction.

The police chief just looked at him in an exhausted disbelief, and then looked over at the squashed armored truck which was starting to give off smoke. Well, even Raito had to admit that it would be one hell of a ride in that beast. But it was still plausible. Slightly.

Soichiro sighed in frustration, glaring at Raito he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone. Obviously he still hadn't gotten over being roomies in the hospital.

"You aren't calling _him_ are you? Really you don't have to call him, I mean he's probably very busy… doing…. god knows what…."

Soichiro merely ignored him before waiting for the person on the other end of the line to answer.

"Fine, call him why don't you? Just don't tell him I'm here, take the glory for yourself. I don't mind, in fact I'd rather not get the credit." Raito held his breath as he waited for L to answer, hopefully Soichiro would be selfish for once and listen to Raito's advice.

"Ryuzaki, I've gotten the tapes." Soichiro sounded triumphant and slightly spent. So far so good, sounded like Raito would get no credit at all. After all Soichiro was still under the impression that he was a psychotic beggar with a bad heart.

"Well, to be honest, it wasn't me. Do you remember Nathanial?" Soichiro looked at Raito briefly. Another pause.

"Tell him all about me! I'm begging you! This is _not _reverse psychology! Tell him it was all my doing!"

"Are you sure?" Soichiro blinked, then passed over the phone to Raito with a slight hint of wariness. Raito cursed the man before reluctantly raising the device to his ear.

"Damn you old man!"

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L couldn't believe his luck. He had sworn that his second suspect had flown off the face of the map laughing at L's attempts to find him. Though the boy was barely considered a suspect, he hardly fit the profile for Kira. The only thing that may have matched was the genius but Nathanial was far too…. Unorthodox to be Kira. Besides judging from the way he spoke about Kira he thought of him as an idiot. (Of course he had referred to L as an idiot too but that was beside the point)

In fact of all the people L had ever met Nathanial was probably the least and most likely to commit mass homicide. Because of all people L had met Nathanial was the only one who seemed to be a walking contradiction. He looked young, hardly older than seventeen but he spoke and looked with eyes well beyond his supposed years. He both avoided and invited L to stalk him. He was annoying, he was interesting; he was infuriating, he was exciting. Nathanial was like watching a car crash, it's bloody messy and there seems no way to stop it but you just can't look away. But despite being a living disaster Nathanial wasn't the living disaster he was looking for.

The one thing that possibly pointed to him being Kira was his ability to appear out of nowhere, and his unheeded knowledge of things that were _supposed_ to be kept secret. Even if the man was not Kira L would need to find where he could possibly have found the information. His name. If one person knew his name who's to say more did not. No, even if he wasn't Kira it was still in his best interests to interrogate him.

"Hello Nathanial-san, why did you retrieve the Kira tapes. Surely you knew that the police would take care of the situation." L spoke in his normal monotone trying to make it seem as if he was sick of Nathanial meddling in his business. The truth was the exact opposite. Besides L suspected the boy (man?) couldn't help himself.

"_Listen asshole, if you have any complaints about me saving you a hell of a lot of trouble you can keep them to yourself. I work hard at what I do! And I don't need any complaints from lazy-detectives-who-are-too-damn-paranoid-to-look-out-the-window." _The red-haired man sounded irritated but there was more to that, underlying the frustration was exhaustion. No doubt it was left over from the heart attack and blood loss he had suffered only days prior. How he had managed to walk out of the hospital alive was beyond L's comprehension.

"I believe I have a right to say my opinions."

"_When pigs fly and hell freezes over." _

L decided it was time to change the subject, clearly bickering was not going to get him any new information. And with Nathanial it always led to some eerie one sided conversation that he appeared to be having with his own conscience that L just happened to overhear.

"Ukita arrived back at headquarters a few minutes ago." Stated L in a matter of fact tone. He looked over at the head strong police man who was staring blankly at the carpet.

"_Really?" _Nathanial sounded genuinely surprised.

"Well didn't you tell him that the situation was being taken care of?"

"_Well yes but I honestly thought that he'd just ignore me and get himself killed." _Nathanial sounded pleased at this outcome, relief coloring his tone. L tried to stop himself from hesitating, but to his dismay had to take two seconds pause before he continued.

"Your lack of faith in my men is flattering, you think of us so highly." L rocked back onto his heels thinking on what Ukita had said when he got back. "He says you participate in grand theft auto." L honestly didn't expect an answer so he was surprised when he heard laughing on the other end of the line.

"_Yeah, I did, I was bored. Not much else to do at the time. Of course it just about killed me every time, but still, it was worth it."_ The young man continued to chuckle as L analyzed this statement. L automatically assumed that he was lying his ass off, but with Nathanial you could never really tell.

"He also said this occurred of five-hundred years ago." L waited.

Nathanial stopped laughing, a cold silence passed through the phone lines.

"_Now what on earth can that mean? I'll leave this to you to figure out. Why spoil the fun?" _

"You call messing with my task force's heads fun?" Not that L could disagree with him but still. The manipulative bastard.

"_You're saying that to me? You are the biggest hypocrite I know, you mess with people's minds way more often than I do. Look in a mirror you delusional bastard. Compared to you I am the god of mercy and virtue." _

L blinked before attempting to resume the conversation but he was cut off by the red-haired suspect.

"_Anyways I'll just give the tapes I picked up to Yagami-san and we can officially say I'm free and out of debt."_

"Debt? Do you owe me money." asked L once again confused just by talking to the man.

"_Money, ha, that would have made my life so much easier. No, I don't owe you money. Just yours and a couple thousand other lives that I some how managed to screw over in my belief that I was a god. So I figure that by getting you the tapes today you might have an epiphany that will somehow manage to save yours and thousand of other lives. Meaning I'm FREE!" _

"Nathanial-san, I'm sure on some other planet that would have made perfect sense, but unfortunately this is earth. As a result I have no idea what Nathanial-kun is trying to convey. Besides I would have gotten the tapes anyways." L felt his eye twitch, the worst part about interrogating victims is when they spent hours telling you absolutely nothing.

A silence followed on the other line before he spoke, _"Ryuga, you are killing my buzz." _

"Hold on I have the deputy police chief on the other line." L used the excuse to get out of the conversation before he lost his temper and really began to argue with the boy.

"_Holding up two conversations simultaneously? Don't you find that a bit rude? Not that I should talk of course, but still… I feel snubbed." _

L mentally rolled his eyes. And began to arrange how to get Soichiro and Nathanial out of the studio before Kira killed both of them. Although he was starting to get feeling that it would take more than a heart attack to kill off his gothic suspect; just a hunch of course.

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Raito was not happy. Not happy at all. That second car hit must have taken a lot more out of him than he expected, as a result he had to be half dragged into L's head quarters (which happened to be a fancy hotel room at the moment). And if he had been able to walk out of the room he would have, hell he would have crawled. It's not that he didn't respect L or admire him in a grudging way it's just, he couldn't talk to the man without being reminded of his death.

And when he was reminded of L's death he was reminded of his own death, and then everyone else's death as well. Death, dying, and dead it was all that left of Raito's life. Not that he ever had much of a life besides death.

Typical summery of seventeen year old Light Yagami's day is as follows,

Get up,

Kill those evil rapists,

Take a shower,

Brush teeth,

Kill those evil murderers,

Take another shower (just to make sure),

Go to school,

And it went on and on and on and on. In fact that's probably why Raito was bored out of his mind now; he had nothing to do except watch a narcissist teenager kill people which can get incredibly dull after a while. What had Ryuk ever seen in him? If Raito was in Ryuk's place he'd have killed Light out of sheer boredom. Entertaining his ass. It wasn't even graphic murders where you had the entertainment of watching someone fall apart. It was just… scribbling in a notebook. Goddamn how had he lived like that?

But now it all was slammed back in his face as he was dragged into the suite by a rather grumpy Soichiro who no doubt thought he needed another trip to the hospital or to the nearest padded room.

That was of course the plan, convince all of L's task force that he was out of his mind. Not only was it good sport it also got him out a lot of awkward conversations. The problem was the boss himself, no chance he could convince L he was insane. The best he could hope for was paranoid-eccentric who had a habit of lying about anything and everything.

"You really should go to the hospital Lawilett-kun." Said the middle aged officer setting Raito down onto the carpet.

"Nathanial, I might not respond to that use of the name. Besides I really did overdo the creative license." Raito grimaced thinking of his purposeful butchering of L's last name, he just wasn't fond of being called 'Lawliet' so he had settled for the next best thing. A horrible mispronunciation.

"You aren't thinking properly Lawilett-kun, go to the hospital." Soichiro must have thought he was delusional due to being hit by a car. That was the least of the factors that went into his insanity.

"Why don't _you_ go to the hospital?"

"I feel fine dammit!"

"You don't look fine, you look old. Older than me and I'm ancient."

Both of them were being helped into the hotel room by Watari who was having a hell of a time getting both of their crippled bodies into the room at once. That's what they got for relying on a reckless driver to save their asses. People got hurt.

"I am not old! And I will go to the hospital later, you should go right now!"

"Why bother? I'll just be back in as soon as I get out. I don't know if you've noticed but I'm rather accident prone…" Especially recently, whatever was throwing off his sense of balance didn't look as if it was going to magically disappear any time soon.

Soichiro was about to answer again before interrupt being interrupted by Watari who happily dumped the two on the floor in front of L who looked bizarrely happy by the turn of events. Raito's panic alert went onto instant high, L was never happy unless he was planning something extremely dangerous.

"Ryuzaki, the tapes are in this bag, along with the copies and the original envelope." Raito's worn out father handed the bag over to L in a rather exhausted manner. The shopping bag was from the Japanese equivalent of Victoria's Secret; they were short on time and couldn't find anything else to place it in. How Soichiro got the bag Raito wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Thank-you Yagami-san. That was a very brave thing you did." L stared at the bag in concentration, Raito rolled his eyes mentally, he never changed. He was purposefully ignoring Raito at the moment and was pretending to actually concentrate on the case. That, or, he was completely heterosexual and was really hoping they brought him porn. Either way he was going to be disappointed.

"I need to go lie down for a while…" sighed out the chief, staking out the couch for the rest of the night. And since they had conveniently forgotten the ex-megalomaniac it seemed like the light was green for his escape plan. Run like hell (or in his broken/sprained leg case crawl like hell)

Of course this is Raito's world so nothing goes according to plan. That would be too easy. L's head snapped up from the Victoria's secret bag and he glared at Raito's all-too-obvious attempt to clamber over towards the door.

"Is Nathanial-kun leaving so soon?" asked the insomniac detective. He set down the bag of tapes and handed it off to Watari muttering a few instructions.

"Yes?" Well Raito hoped he was, but right now it wasn't seeming like a likely option. Especially since L had suddenly become obsessed with him, honestly Raito was not that exciting. Besides it was vaguely stalker like.

"But he just got here, and besides he is after all a main suspect of mass homicide."

"That makes me want to stay how?" Raito looked back towards the door in desperation, maybe if he could half limp over there he could make it before the rest of the team decided to act.

"We have coffee." That of course was the last thing Raito wanted to hear, for one it started a sterotype that he was dependent on coffee and secondly it would mean that he would have to stay just for that damn coffee!

"Damn you and your caffeine to hell!" Sighing in defeat Raito sat down on the floor and placed one hand under his chin turning to look at the detective in disapproval. "It better be a good brand."

The detective smiled motioning for Watari to bring in the coffee, "Oh don't worry it is. Watari I'm going to need the hand cuffs." His dark eyes seemed to widen as he looked at Raito, taking in every miniscule detail for analysis.

Raito blinked slowly, "What part of coffee do I need hand cuffs for?" the feeling of dread spread from his stomach all the way to his throat. Was the caffeine worth it?

"You don't need them, but I do. Would Nathanial-kun like to play a little game of interrogation? I'll be the detective and you can be the criminal." L smiled slowly placing aside the tapes and reaching for the hand cuffs Watari brought him.

"Not really, how about _I_ be the detective and you can be the criminal?" Raito had to admit it, the man was good, Raito had no chance of running when the cold metal rings snapped shut around his wrists.

"Uh Ryuzaki, shouldn't we be analyzing the tapes now?" asked the ever eager Matsuda whom Raito still had revenge planned for. L turned away from his newest prisoner and looked a Matsuda with a degrading expression.

"Matsuda-san, please don't interrupt me on my unofficial interrogation or else I might have to torture the poor man." L turned back to Raito whose eyes widened at the word torture and used his good leg to push himself away from the detective.

"I don't regret it, I thought I did but I changed my mind." Raito stared at L's face slowly taking in the epiphany in full force.

"What?" the detective cocked his head staring back at the murderer.

"L the Kira tapes please!"

L reluctantly turned away from Raito and towards the television placing in the first cassette delicately. With relief Raito realized that L still had no idea what he was saying, but eventually he would lose that luxury for it seemed that L was not likely to dub him insane so easily.

**Author's note: **

**Reviewing is nice, especially when the authoress hasn't updated in about two months. It makes her feel guilty when she doesn't update, so she updates faster. But possibly ignores editing, so her work makes less sense. But hey, who's complaining. An update is an update.**

**HEE HEE**

**REVIEW or Chuck Norris will come get you in the night!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note: Welcome to chapter eleven, thank you to readers, reviewers, and to fan fiction which allows me to be nerdy in a very cool way. And I am sorry if Chuck Norris came after you in the night, I'm sure it was a very traumatizing experience. Alas on with the show. **

**Thank you to Scourge who during my flu epidemic managed to edit when I was too brain dead to think.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. I will never own Death Note. I wish I used to own Death Note then I could be stalked by an apple loving shinigami too! **

It wasn't often that Raito got a bad feeling about situations. Well, to be honest, that was a lie—he felt bad about situations all the time, and this time was no different. Hand-cuffs plus insomniac-paranoid-detectives equals damn. Literally and figuratively. Damn. The only thing that could _possibly_ make this worse would be if his old-self happened to walk through the door. Then things would get _really_ nasty.

Of course, the whole situation wasn't his fault. Not at all. Nope. Well, again, that was a lie. It was completely his fault. If only he had been more observant and not been hit by two cars, then maybe he could have run off into the night, tapes dropped at Soichiro's feet. That would have been the ideal situation. But ideal situations, being what they are, had tended to avoid him recently.

Hence, he was sitting on the floor staring at a steaming cup of coffee, unable to reach it due to the fact that the world's greatest living detective (everyone knew Sherlock Holmes was really the best) had just cuffed his hands for no apparent reason. Oh, wait. There was a reason. He wanted to play interrogation. He wanted to _play _interrogation. Was it just Raito, or did that sound like a hooker-role-play/date rape scene? Hell, they even had the hand cuffs.

He didn't regret it; he didn't regret killing the man at all. Sometimes he would feel pity towards the bastard, but then he remembered the hand cuffs. The lovely, cold, unrepentant, Godforsaken hand cuffs. Would anyone regret it?

"Would Nathanial-kun please stop staring at the back of my head as if he wished to murder me?" L's head turned a fraction of an inch away from the screen where Misa's hand-made videos played. Raito's eyebrows raised as soon as L deemed it unworthy to engage in a staring match. Kill him? Why bother? He'd done it once—no need to make his point twice.

"Who said anything about murder? I was thinking we could play torture the infidels, and I was thinking that you can be my first victim!" Raito's unusually cheerful tone caused L's head once more to turn slowly in his direction, along with everyone else in the room to lose focus.

"Infidels?" sputtered Ukita, Raito's latest witness to the effects of thousands of years of talking to practically no one and murdering thousands. Obviously, he hadn't gotten over the shock yet… not that anyone ever did.

"Figure of speech. You don't take jokes well. Why am I the only one who can take a joke?" It was a good question; of course, there had been a time when he also hadn't been able to take a joke. But that was a long time ago, before years of bitterness and depression set in.

For about the third time that night, the task force seemed to sigh in relief and turned to look at L questioningly, most likely thinking, 'Why is this loony here and not in a padded room?', then went back to work. What a day.

Of course, there was not much he would be doing beside this. He could, of course, track down Misa, but so far he was not feeling motivated to stalk his stalker. However poetic and ironic that would be, it didn't sound helpful, and it could end very badly. Besides L, there were few people he could hardly stand, and L he had grudging respect for, even if it was rapidly going down the drain. Misa, however—she had no such respect, and he would be dammed if he approached her of his own volition.

And he didn't want to confront her shinigami eyes face to face. Who knows what they would reveal to her, and subsequently, to L. She would be caught, that was certain, and then she would rat, because, unfortunately, Raito had looked in a mirror recently and what he saw was not impressive. While he wasn't fat, it wasn't great being on the starving side of the spectrum either. A tan would have been nice, and normal colored eyes—not a bizarre mix of red and brown. But the face that was reflected across the glass was someone he could hardly recognize; only years of seeing a stranger in the mirror had allowed him the ability not to be so disturbed by what he saw there. To put it bluntly, he didn't look human and he doubted that any woman would be dumb enough to fall for his (lacking) charm now.

"So, Nathanial-kun, where are you from?" Matsuda had been the quickest one to adapt to his rather dramatic presence; unfortunately, he was also the one who asked all the annoying questions.

"Japan." This, of course, was his usual one-word response to annoying questions such as these; he had tried sticking with just yes-no answers, but that didn't work with every question.

"Where in Japan?" continued the blundering idiot wonder. Raito always knew he had been stupid, but this was pushing it. To any normal person such as Aizawa, or even silent Mogi, Raito looked like someone who had lost his mind, not someone to start small talk with.

"Er…. Japan?" Raito was not unaware of the great detective L's eyes once more turning from the screen. Best not to mention any city—Japan was a large enough country. He couldn't narrow him down from there. Right?

"Oh… okay. How about your family? Got any siblings?" After being deterred for only one second, Matsuda fired the next question, causing Raito to grow in awe of the man he had once thought absolutely useless.

"Yes, I had a sister." No use in lying. L couldn't find out anything on him through siblings. There were plenty of two child families in the world… and in Japan.

"Had? Where is she now?" Obvious. That should have been Matsuda's name. Captain Obvious.

"Estranged. My parents abhor me. I doubt they even know I'm living; probably think I was shot to death in a warehouse by the police…."

"That's terrible!"

"Hmmmmm, I find it ironic, but that might be because I'm old."

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L stared blankly at the television screen, which was now alive with static and white noise. The situation was not good—for one thing, there seemed to be more than one Kira on the loose, and secondly, this Kira didn't seem to have any qualms with making demands via television and letting the magic of the bloodthirsty mob do its work. If the police agreed to help 'Kira', then L would, as a sign of good faith, be forced to show himself on public television. And, of course, saying no to Kira would just have the same effect… only people might be a tad bit more angry when he didn't show.

But the worst thing of all was that, if his hunch was correct, he had just managed to handcuff this second Kira for questioning in his hotel headquarters. Rash, impulsive, cunning—these were not the traits of the first Kira. These were the traits of someone much more likely to demand his face publicized on television. Nathanial.

Said suspect seemed bored out of his mind at the moment, as he was questioned about his personal life by an ever eager Matsuda, who was not deterred in the slightest when he got only vague one word answers. Of course, this was probably more annoying than Kira asking to see his face on television.

"Oh, thank God, Ryuga, the home-videos are over. Can we please get this role play over with so I can leave?" said Nathanial begging with his eyes—a very eerie thing to watch, since Nathanial looked so out of place as it was.

"This is an interrogation, Kira-san, and I would expect that you take this seriously." L tried to ignore the unsurprised looks on his task force's faces; clearly, they were on the same thought track as him. Also annoying. The world's greatest detective shouldn't be matched in deductive reasoning by _Matsuda_.

"Alright, agent Smith, fire away!" The pale youth tried to pull one hand up to possibly salute L, but then seemed to remember that it was hand cuffed along with his other hand behind his back.

"Nice try Kira-san, but you're going to have to do better than that." L had indeed nearly responded to the jibe, but caught himself in the nick of time before he could launch a useless bickering match with Nathanial.

"Are you trying to distract me, Smith? It's not going to work."

Once again, L stopped himself from answering back in a less than friendly manner. He took a breath and continued from the line of questioning he originally intended.

"Why did Kira-san go to collect the tapes from Sakura television when he so obviously planted them himself?"

"Is that loaded question a blank? Because I don't have a bullet proof vest, but if you have to shoot someone, shoot Matsuda." Nathanial looked down at his dark attire in disappointment, obviously wishing he had brought some sort of garment to stop bullets.

"That did not answer my question in the slightest, Kira-san. Does Kira-san need more persuasion?"

"But it was a stupid question—you already answered it. Why would you want to hear the same answer twice?" remarked Nathanial casually, seeming to lose interest in L's evaporating interrogation. To be frank, L was losing interest as well.

"So then you did send the tapes to Sakura."

"I wish the Goblin King would take you away," muttered the suspect softly, glaring at the detective's uncovered feet.

"What did you say?" said L, not quite wanting to believe what he heard.

"I wish the Goblin King would take you away! God dammit, I thought that was supposed to work. Oh well, what did you say?"

"That's it, Watari bring out the mace." L motioned to Watari, who was standing stalk still, mouth hanging down to his knees like the rest of the task force, and apparently not in any mood to take orders from L no matter how great a detective he may be. Of course, though, Matsuda was the quickest to respond and point out the obvious.

"Isn't that illegal?" Matsuda's face was sculpted into a look of shocked horror at the prospect of torturing Nathanial without any reason or warrant allowing him to do so.

"Of course it's illegal,l but Kira-san is a hardened criminal who must be stopped!"

"Ryuzaki, he looks like a drug addict." This seemed to be the common thought of all the men on the task force, each one staring at Nathanial's bizarre clothing and dilated eyes.

"I do not look like a…. Oh my God, I do, wow, I would have killed myself if I had ever thought this was conceivable. But I am handcuffed, being interrogated for something I didn't do, and I look like a drug addict. This is pathetic." Nathanial then shook his head in dismay, a wry smile forming its way across his face.

L, feeling discouraged, decided to act by applying the mace directly into Nathanial's eyes. He would have used something a tad more potent, but unfortunately hotel rooms were usually not equipped with the standard torture merchandise.

"Ouch! I forgot how terrible mace tasted, ew, it will take me weeks to get this out of my mouth." Coughing and gagging, Nathanial squinted his eyes shut, possibly annoyed but not nearly as ready to confess as L had hoped.

"Is Nathanial-kun Kira?" asked L calmly, spraying the mace once more into his suspect's eyes.

"You are asking the wrong question, and using the wrong tense. But either way, my answer is still no," said Nathanial equally calmly, his eyes watering slightly but his amused smile returning. His face grew darker with thoughts L could not hope to perceive.

"I don't believe Nathanial-kun." L raised the mace a third time, prepared to spray it with little effect upon his victim.

"Hey, I have a better idea. Put away the mace, Ryuga." Nathanial visibly brightened, his good mood returning spontaneously, causing L and the other task force members to blink.

Clearly interrogating was going to get L nowhere, and torture didn't seem to affect the young man either. That left him basically two choices: one, he could continue to interrogate and threaten torture until Nathanial broke or two, he could stop where he was and launch into yet another battle of wills with a man who seemed to be bipolar.

"I'm not sure if you've realized this, but I am an extraordinarily talented individual. Many of my talents include bullshitting, negotiating, and, my personal favorite, inconceivable acts of escape. That's not to say I don't get into these situations easily, but I get out of them with a few minor gun wounds; we'll not mention those." Nathanial smiled slowly, an idea clearly brimming beneath his red-brown eyes. It made L uneasy, "So I propose we make a bet, Ryuga. If I lose, I answer all your questions and more. Yes, that means everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. However, if I win, I walk, free of hand cuffs and any recording system of any kind."

"What exactly does this bet entail?" asked L warily. He was negotiating with a suspect who wouldn't respond to torture or questioning. L wondered idly if Nathanial even felt pain—his last gruesome display of blood would have been enough to kill a normal man, but all he had done was scream a few curse words.

"Strip poker. We all have to play. You keep the clothes you win and lose the clothes you lose. In other words, once your pants are gone they're gone." Nathanial finished his statement by taking a card deck out of his coat pocket and beginning to shuffle it between his pale hands.

"Nathanial-kun, you want to play strip poker…" repeated L dimly, feeling his hopes of a psychological discussion going down the drain.

"Well, I don't _want_ to, but I am in no mood for torture. Neither of us has the time; we're both busy, you with your investigation and me with my… meandering. And besides, I've played my way out of many a situation before. I once got myself out of being assassinated by playing strip poker. You'd be surprised what you can accomplish with just a simple deck of cards and a disgustingly thin figure." Nathanial, to L's infinite surprise, looked completely serious, as if he believed what he was saying.

"Nathanial-kun wishes to play strip poker with me in order to gain his freedom?" asked L again, more slowly this time to make sure he enunciated each word with precision.

"Trust me, this is not the worst thing I have done to get out of a bad situation. Besides, you have a chance of winning, and then you'll have all the answers you'll ever need to know. Probably more than you need to know. Or, for that matter, will want to know."

"You said yourself that you were a liar. How will I know that what you tell me is the truth?"

"Well, Ryuga, to me, lies are lies and promises are promises. Lies are just words—meaningless. A promise is a shackle, something that binds me to my decisions, so rest that assured if I lose I will tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not."

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Raito only won strip poker every time he played for two reasons. The first was cheating, and more cheating had always gotten him the winning hand… although it is hard to hide cards up your sleeves when you lose your shirt. The second reason was the one he never liked to admit—people just didn't want to see him half-naked.

In truth, Raito had lost a quite a lot of pounds over the years and he had never been considered overweight before—not to mention his skin pigmentation had gone down the drain ages ago. Pale starving men were not something most people wanted to see. Normal people, that is, and Twilight fans weren't what he considered normal.

So whenever Raito ended up too close to losing his pants the other players would bail. It was a win-win situation, as his legs didn't get cold and the participants' eyes were not permanently scarred. Of course, the last time he had played strip-poker was to get himself out of having to play politics with various inhuman creatures from heaven, and that had been a very long time ago.

"So, gentlemen, which one of you will be the first to lose his shoes?" Raito smiled as he shuffled the deck, watching each one of their unnerved faces; oh, they were making this far too easy.

"I hate to inform Nathanial-kun that I am not wearing shoes." Everyone, that is except L. He always had to make things exceedingly difficult.

"It was a general statement, Ryuga. The world does not revolve around you." Damn right, it revolved around the one and only Light Yagami… but he didn't have to know that.

"I insinuated that I believed the world was in orbit around myself?" said a bemused L. Of course, he felt he had to throw in the fancy wording, just so Matsuda could sit there and look like a dead plant.

"So then, you do believe the world revolves around you. And I thought I was arrogant." Raito shook his head in what most would perceive as disappointment, but what L would see as an insult to his intellect. Before L could interrupt with a witty comeback, Raito dealt out five cards to each player.

"Um, how does this help the investigation?" asked Matsuda, whose question was no doubt running through everyone's minds at the moment.

"It doesn't. It's just amusing to watch middle-aged men squirm." Raito's answer, predictably, didn't help at all and only made the taskforce less enthused to play cards with a complete nutcase.

"So, then, we don't really have to play, do we?" Aizawa glared at Raito, which was something that had happened, even before he had shown up as the red-headed wonder. Aizawa had never been too keen on Raito; apparently his death hadn't changed his opinion.

"No, I suppose you don't, but where's the fun in that?" Raito paused, laying his cards face down on the table. "But that, of course, means Ryuga loses the bet and I get to walk out of here scotch free, and he most certainly doesn't want that."

If there was one thing in the world Raito knew for sure, it was that L hated to lose. L would rather lay dying on the floor with his enemy smiling down on him than admit defeat. Kira was the same way, but that was a long time ago and frankly, at the moment Raito felt his survival was higher on his list of priorities than the petty need for victory. L had lost the battle, it was true, but he hadn't lost the war. It had just taken him five more years and two idiot apprentices to achieve victory. But then, who cared about details like those?

"That's it, I'm leaving. I can't stand this nutcase. Strip poker?! What the hell does he think this is, anyway? Playtime?" Aizawa stood abruptly, his afro remaining firmly gelled in place. Raito watched him with a smug smile; they really were making this fun.

"Playtime? Please, Aizawa, I'm not a five-year-old. I'd prefer to call it an educational opportunity." Raito briefly wondered if he should have blurted his name, but then forgot about it as the taskforce member's eyebrows crashed down like lightning.

"See, he doesn't even pretend to be remotely serious about anything! I don't even know why he bothered to get those damn tapes!" shouted the policeman, his eyes staring down at Raito in a boiling rage. That was when Raito's good humor started to fade; he could only take so much criticism from humans who had no idea what it was like to be him.

"I got them because you would have botched it and then someone would have died. You people are so prone to fits of anger. That's what your problem is. If you only calmed down a little and analyzed the situation you wouldn't be stuck here with me." His voice had lost most of its upbeat quality and now reminded him of a younger version of himself, more sober and serious far too concerned about the world's affairs.

"Why do you think you're so great? Who made you so special?" He remembered why he had disliked Aizawa now—possibly more irritating than L himself.

"Hey! I do not have a god-complex! If I were God, why would I even bother talking to the mortal fools? I'd smite all you hypocritical bastards. Who made you so damn special, Aizawa? Because it sure as hell wasn't me." It was true; Raito remembered having more fun killing the humans than he had saving them.

"You know, I think I _would_ rather play strip poker than listen to you two argue." Soichiro mumbled incoherently, Mogi nodded in agreement, and Matsuda coughed nervously.

"Well, why didn't someone say so? I was waiting for the law abiding folk deciding whether or not to gamble." Raito chuckled mentally at the suppressed anger on all the men's faces; even L looked ready to break into a tantrum.

Ryuk was right in one respect: humans were fun.

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The one thing Naomi hadn't expected was for everything to remain the same; to find herself back in the Tokyo she had died in. No flying cars, no teleportation—just normal people walking about in normal clothes.

This must have been the Tokyo Light Yagami had lived in, killed in, and eventually, as the stories would have had it, died in. She felt utterly lost amidst the ongoing traffic of people.

Of course, when she had arrived she had been even more frazzled. When they sent her back, they hadn't explained she'd be in the exact spot where she committed suicide. Which, of course, had been the first pond she had found. She had been brainwashed. Brilliant ways of committing suicide and not being found had escaped her. She blamed Kira—if he had wanted her to do something fantastic he should have written it down that way.

Cheap bastard.

After much struggling underwater, trying to remove the cement blocks she had tied to her feet, she managed to reach the surface and cough up the water trapped in her lungs for about five minutes straight. Naomi noted that if she were to ever commit suicide again, she would avoid drowning at all costs; it was not worth the effort. It was only after getting rid of all the water did she notice the various families staring at her in horror.

She forgot that she had committed suicide in a park, of all places.

At first they had simply gawked at her, until one of them asked if she was a mermaid. She had asked them if they saw a fish tail anywhere near her.

That had defiantly been the worst part of the day; the next worst part was going back to her and Raye's apartment and trying to barter the landlord to find out what they did with her clothes. (She found her wallet soaked and useless in her back pocket) It turns out that her landlord didn't believe in miracles or missing people and simply thought that she was skipping her rent and therefore refused to say what the police did with her clothes.

Honestly, what was wrong with these people?

So, as a result, she had to sit in her soaking wet clothes with her soaking wet money thinking about her revenge that didn't look as if it would happen any time soon. Somehow, Kira had made everyone in this world more of a self-centered jerk than they already were. That, and they tended to stare a lot more than they used to. Or maybe that was due to the fact she had crawled out of a lake and tried to buy coffee with wet slabs of paper.

This was by far the worst day of her life. She found herself asking if it could possibly get any worse. Unfortunately for her, it could and did.

The gay clown started dancing towards her. When she said 'gay clown', she meant that the man's face was covered in a white powder-like substance and his blue lips were spread into a sharp-toothed grin that stretched (literally) from ear to ear. If that hadn't been enough to run off in the other direction, then maybe the clothes bordering on a Marilyn Manson want-to-be, along with every bangle and jangle one could imagine. That, and he seemed to be walking right towards her.

Naomi didn't always make the best decisions, but she was a relatively normal human being, so when she saw a seven-foot-tall clown dancing towards, her she did what most normal people would do: scream and run off in the other direction, cursing the lack of insight not to bring a can of mace with her, all the while hearing the chuckles of the possessed clown.

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"You can't be serious," muttered an incredulous Aizawa, staring at Nathanial's fifth consecutive winning hand. Anger had given way to awe then to exasperation and now to the faint suspicion that the red haired individual was somehow managing to hide aces up his sleeves without a shirt on.

Overall, L was grudgingly impressed, or at least he would have if he wasn't losing at strip poker with a man who would no doubt laugh his ass off when he thought about it later. L, strip poker: the words put together in a sentence made them meaningless mumbo-jumbo. Besides, L was worried he might run out of clothes.

L had already lost his shirt, and unlike the other men he didn't have many neck ties or socks and shoes to lose to Nathanial.

L didn't have the dignity to lose to Nathanial, of all people.

"Come on, Matsuda, strip like you mean it! Strip like a man! Well… a man who really likes pole dancing." Nathanial's words didn't convey as much sympathy as he might have intended; Matsuda sniffed as he removed his jacket.

"But what if I don't want to strip?" asked Matsuda after dropping his jacket in front of the grinning Nathanial.

"Too bad, look at the cards. They demand your clothing, not mine." Nathanial waved the array of aces in front of Matsuda's tomato red face. At least L wasn't the only one horrified with the prospect of removing his articles of clothing in front of Nathanial.

If L weren't so confused about Nathanial's seemingly-inhuman thought process he might have sworn that this whole charade was just a form of petty revenge. The terrible joy that would flash through his eyes and the dark chuckles were rather ominous.

"I love this game!"

In fact, L was positive this was a strange attempt at petty revenge or karma come to eat him alive. L dubbed it ceremoniously the worst day of his life thus far and decided that it couldn't possibly get any worse.

**Author's note: You know what? Screw these update promises, I obviously can't keep them. So from now on I will update when I feel inspired, whenever that happens. Ah well. **

**Reviews are wonderful ways to motivate people, especially if I confused you all to death. But I couldn't resist, it was just too much fun.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: THANKYOU EVERYONE! Readers, reviewers, people who complain about my terrible grammar. You guys aren't the only one's—believe me, everyone's got issues with the spelling and grammar. Again, sorry for the delay as I assume it has been at least two months since my last update. Figures, I got distracted by stuff... namely online anime, the best thing ever (besides all the dubs and cursed Spanish subtitles). **

**Disclaimer: If I owned anything about my writing, why in god's name would I post it on Fanfiction? DO YOU KNOW? Maybe this is all just a conspiracy theory, distracting you from my true goal of DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE! (Does anyone actually read my AN's?)**

"Yes, victory is mine! Foolish mortals, see what happens to those who dare to oppose me? I AM GOD!" Raito dropped his winning hand onto the table, laughing at the horror-struck faces of those around him.

His god complex was returning; that much was obvious. But the look on Matsuda's face—priceless, completely worth whatever slamming his ego would get later when he once again had to face the fact that he was not a divine being.

"But there are only four aces in a deck," stammered a rather confused Matsuda, staring at Raito's five cards in dismay.

"And?" asked Raito, adjusting his newly won tie and jacket. The tie he'd probably lose later, but the jacket was nice.

"There are five aces in your hand," continued Matsuda, staring at Raito's five-ace hand.

"So?" responded Raito, looking over at L, who seemed about ready to shoot himself. A job well done on Raito's part; revenge was always terribly satisfying, even if it involved playing poker shirtless while attempting to maintain your pants.

"Well, if there are only for aces in a deck and there are five aces in your hand you must have cheated…." Matsuda trailed off, still staring at the hand in confusion—after all, how could someone cheat without a place to hide the cards?

Raito's eye twitched. Matsuda was completely right; there were five aces in his winning hand and that did constitute as cheating, making it an automatic forfeit… which meant that L was going to rue the day he was ever born when Raito was through with questioning.

"How did I cheat? Look at this hand? Do you see a repeated suit, asshole? Do you?"

"Nathanial-kun, there are two different versions of spades," muttered L, who was attempting to look as natural as possible while shirtless, which Raito found this hilarious. L's face changed from an irritated glare to his natural deadpan.

"No they aren't, this one is… the suit of… sharp pointy rock things…. See, it looks kind of like a sharp pointy rock thing…. It's a special deck." Raito felt his argument slipping away, like so many of them did recently. He wondered if he'd have to call it a day and jump out the window. Of course, that would most likely kill him, what with the impact on the pavement twenty stories below—but still, the plan sounded nice in his head until he got to the dying part.

"No, it looks like a spade because that's what it is. Although how you managed to get aces to materialize out of nothing is beyond me." Somehow the fact that L could state this with a straight face while shirtless frightened Raito immensely. The theory that L wasn't human was looking more and more plausible.

"A magician never reveals his secrets, especially to his insomniac robotic vampire detective enemies who keep plotting his demise!"

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The great thing about being dead, Naomi realized, was that she could run for a lot longer than she normally could. Sure, she got no adrenaline boost and she didn't go very fast, but if she kept up her pace she was pretty sure that she could outrun the clown.

Running was not the best word, though, seeing as she was moving at a slow jog and the clown was hopping up and down on one foot, contorting himself into something that looked vaguely like a pretzel—a shriveled, burnt pretzel that even a rat wouldn't eat, but something close to a pretzel.

Was Naomi just born extremely unlucky? The day she was born, did God just decide to make her life completely miserable? What had she ever done to deserve this?

First off, she got saddled with L and thereby got saddled with B, Ryuzaki, whatever the hell his name was. The guy ate jam. He ate freaking jam, and then crawled around the floor looking for clues. It was as if he thought he was Hannibal Lector but only managed to fail miserably when he decided to go roll around the victim's floor. Of course, then he lit himself on fire—for being a genius, he wasn't too bright….

That had been a bad week, and to top it all off, she got absolutely no credit. Sure, she _worked _with L, meaning she did all the work while he randomly contacted her when he felt like it. Oh yes, Misora-san helped, just a bit, but really it was all L's work, L's theories. Naomi had not seen him confronting the jam-eating-anime-loving-freaky-homicide-committing-lunatic—she would know, she was there and he was not.

Of course, things had gotten better—she got her job back. Next time she saw a thirteen-year-old drug dealer, she knew when to fire. She had gotten engaged and things were starting to look up in her ill-fated world. Then Kira showed up.

It was no mistake that Raye was chosen to tail Kira himself—hell, Naomi knew that when L came snooping around for the FBI, his eyes must have lingered on the name Raye Penber. Naomi was not one for coincidences, and choosing Raye was just a way for L to say hello and thanks for all the help. An unlucky bus ride to Space Land later decided Raye's fate for him.

He showed his I.D. to his own suspect; he gave his name away to Kira with nothing more than mild irritation. Kira was brilliant, Kira was foolish; either way, Kira was lethal. Make one mistake and he would punish you for it—even as he whispered goodbye, he would inform you with dancing eyes that your time was up.

He let Raye live for a few weeks; poor, exhausted Raye who in turn betrayed his entire team to the enemy, and in turn became the monster he was fighting. She knew what it was like to stare into those cold brown eyes and see nothing but your own pathetic expression of defeat, of horror. But she did not know what it was like to stare into them and see _his _eyes staring back at you.

Raye died on a subway train of a heart attack staring as his murderer waved goodbye and Naomi had done nothing. There was nothing she could have done, granted, but it was a curse to feel so… helpless.

In the final threshold of victory, Kira himself stopped to join her. Handsome and charming, he guided her away from the NPA building and listened to her theories. Not only that, he understood them; you could see from his expression that he _knew _what she had only patched together through guesswork. He reminded her of the cold unfeeling genius she had never laid eyes upon—in some way that she could not guess, he reminded her of the detective L.

Somehow, she felt she could trust him, that she could talk to him, that for once in her life someone would be able to help her. Naomi wasn't born into luck; she worked for what she got, and in the end it destroyed her.

All that effort wasted away within forty seconds. She felt the ticking of the second hand as Kira's eyes gazed at his watch's surface, his eyes that in the light held the illusion of being crimson, his eyes which tore her to pieces as he yelled after her, asking whether she had anything important to do.

No, she didn't have anything better to do than drown herself in a pond—why on earth would there be anything more important than that? L, what was L? Some day, L would be floating at the bottom of a pond too.

Kira was lethal in his innocence. Raye had no chance, she had no chance, L had no chance. But she wouldn't fall for the same trick twice; this time, Kira was going to Hell.

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L knew only one thing about his day—he needed some cheese cake or he might have to kill someone. For one thing, despite the fact that Nathanial had managed to pull five aces out of nowhere, he still managed to win the damn poker game. Not one member of the task force could prove how he cheated. In Nathanial's eloquent opinion, it was simply an impossible concept.

"Well, I obviously can't have fooled the world's greatest detective, so I can't have cheated," he stated with a shrug of his bony shoulders; without his dark coat, they looked incredibly small and thin, as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. Through his frustration and humiliation L felt the slight prickling of unease; he was fairly sure that he had never actually seen Nathanial eat anything.

But what could he say to that statement? It was impossible to fool L—he was _L_! Not Matsuda, who could be won over by a few cheap magic tricks—magic tricks that weren't even worth the effort of figuring out.

"Are you a magician, Lawilett-san?" asked the imbecile eagerly.

L wanted to fire him. No, he didn't want to fire him; he wanted to kill the idiot. If only he hadn't used the Lind L. Taylor ploy—that would have come in handy right about now.

"Yes, I was; unfortunately, they ran me out of the business as soon as I suggested that magic is a useless skill that is obsolete in all practices of society. The great wizard council wasn't too happy with that." Nathanial, after successfully proving that there was no chance he could have cheated and that there weren't two sets of spades in his hand, was back to his usual witty comebacks.

If L could simultaneously murder two people and not get caught, he would know who to pick. But L could never do that, because L wouldn't stoop so low as to commit homicide. He'd have Watari do it for him.

"Ryuzaki, I have sat here playing strip poker, not asking any questions. Why the hell aren't we working on capturing Kira?!" Aizawa, unlike L, had no talent at hiding his rage from the general public.

"Oh, but this is helping you catch Kira. You humans are so near-sighted it's ridiculous." Nathanial enjoyed destroying the minds of L's task force far too much. "Obviously, I'm one of your top three suspects of being Kira. I'm too eccentric to be anything else, correct? But by playing my games you must have realized something—I can't be your Second Kira."

"There are two Kiras?" asked Matsuda as his jaw dropped once again. The entire room seemed to be in shock, except, of course, for L and Nathanial, who already knew that. L was cursing his suspect with all his breath for letting that slip before L was able to tell them personally.

"You're really slow on the uptake, Matsuda-san. Last I checked, Kira didn't kill criminals featured in women's tabloid magazines. Also, last I checked Kira was a self-righteous asshole and would never stoop so low as to post himself on national television for some publicity."

A little crass, but generally the same idea L had gotten while watching the tapes. It even hinted on L's theory that Kira was a woman. This had to be the worst day of L's life—he had been one-upped by a shirtless-lunatic who barely showed the slightest effort or thought in doing it.

The worst part, though, the worst part, was that Nathanial knew he was humiliated. It was all part of some clever form of revenge that even L with his genius IQ couldn't predict. L couldn't remember what he had done to Nathanial that would constitute making his life miserable. Nathanial wasn't one of those people you forgot; he made sure that you remembered him, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

"Ryuga-san, it's been fun but I have to go. I'd say that I was off to see some old friends, but I have none. Good luck catching that megalomaniac of yours; hopefully, you'll get a lead sooner or later." Nathanial hoisted himself to his feet, picking up his newly won shirt and his old black jacket, leaving the numerous ties on the floor.

L was speechless. How could he possibly have guessed all L's theories without even trying? Nathanial knew who Kira was, probably knew who the second one was too, but L was too slow to stop Nathanial from crawling out the door.

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"Good morning, sunshine, the earth says hello, and as always no one cares what the hell the moon is saying."

Light groaned as he turned over in his bed, his eyes opening slightly to reveal the blurred image of a lanky figure sitting on his desk, looking down on him. At first, his thoughts jumped to the apple-hoarding shinigami, but he could have sworn the voice sounded different than Ryuk's bored whine.

"That would be because Ryuk isn't here, you lazy moron. If he was here, I'm sure he'd be laughing his ass off instead of saying a cheerful hello." The voice was definitely not Ryuk's; it sounded too human, too normal to be the blasted shinigami.

With that thought, Light fell out of his bed and onto the floor in the least graceful moment of shock in his life. This intruder knew about Ryuk, so he must also know that he was Kira; with only a few scraps of the Death Note left, Light was practically helpless. The invader sighed, hopped off the desk, and flicked on the lights.

"There, does that help?" he asked in a sarcastic tone that insulted Light in every way possible.

It didn't take long for Light to recognize the injured, harebrained young man from his tennis match with L. Nathanial looked fairly well for a man who had suffered a heart attack and extreme blood loss. His skin appeared just as pale and icy as it did in the hospital when he insulted all of humanity in an apathetic manner that left Light feeling like he had been slapped in the face.

"You stole the notebook, didn't you? After all that talk of being better than Kira, you have now stolen it for yourself." Light watched as Nathanial began to smile and shake his head in… amusement.

"Isn't it funny, Light, how we ourselves are our own worst critics? No words are sharper, no wounds are deeper, than the ones that come from your own hands and lips. Light, you can insult me all you want. I don't care. I didn't come here to share my life's story to you, of all people. I came here because we have unfinished business." Nathanial's dark words were laced with bitterness, even as he continued to smile softly. He looked almost as if he were pitying Light.

"Did you come here for the rest of the Death Note?" Light didn't need to ask that question; of course he came for the rest of the Death Note. Why else would he have bothered to break in a second time?

"Not necessarily." Nathanial paused, and Light couldn't help but notice how much more red the man's eyes looked now than they did when he had last seen him. "You know, Light, I do believe you look younger today than when I saw you last. The anger, the calculation, the death… it exhilarates you, doesn't it? You live for the stroke of the pen; your life is divided into intervals of forty seconds; you live from death to death like some people live from day to day. Believe me, Light, I understand you more completely and thoroughly than any other being that lives or has ever lived. I know you better than you know yourself." He whispered the last sentence, barely allowing it to be heard through the tense atmosphere.

"You're lying. You don't know anything about me." It was Light's adolescent safeguard—the idea that no one understood him was comforting, accepted.

"I said I understood you, Light, not that I understood myself. My mind is a fluid labyrinth, the walls rushing together and flowing like a river—is it so strange to become lost within your own memories? You aren't nearly as complex as you make yourself out to be, Light. Believe me, for my lies are the truth that no one has faith enough to believe in." The smile was slowly fading from his lips, leaving an appearance of weariness. "I didn't come here to talk about myself, though. I have a question for you. Do you honestly believe that they can change?"

"Who can…" Light stopped when he saw Nathanial's livid glare pinning his feet to the floor.

"You know what I'm talking about, Light Yagami. Don't pretend to be innocent when talking with me. The humans—do you really think they are capable of changing their own nature?" The room seemed frozen with Nathanial's icy words. Light felt his anger and indignation build in the tense atmosphere.

"Human nature isn't defined by the wicked, selfish people that infest the world. Human nature is defined by the good, innocent, noble people that work to make this place slightly more livable."

"And he shall smite the wicked. Congratulations, Light. You have absolutely no grasp of what it means to be human. I told you once that I didn't believe in good and evil. Do you want to know why?" asked Nathanial, his voice beckoning Light to respond to the cruel statements.

"Perhaps you're right, though. Perhaps you're better off not knowing my inner thoughts. You can't understand what you won't let yourself hear." Nathanial paused again, this time turning his head to look out the window. "I'm not here to force the few fragments of Death Note out of your hands, because in the end you will run out of time, if not paper. The Death Note's clock is ticking; you won't be its owner forever, Light. Enjoy your intoxication while you can. It won't last forever. You'll just have to suffer with the rest of us."

"I don't believe you," said Light Yagami, stating for the first time his true feelings on the situation.

Nathanial simply smiled and nodded.

"I know, Light. I know that better than anyone."

And within moments the door opened and clicked shut, the ghastly specter of a man once more walking in and out of Light's life with little more than a wave goodbye.

**Author's note: There you have it, the victor of the strip poker competition. Who could've seen that one? For some reason, this actually was a fast update. Be glad and don't expect it too often. We're finally approaching the part of the story where I get to mess with your heads. YES! **

**Reviews are nice, even if this was a little late. **


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note: Chapter thirteen. We've come a long way, readers and reviewers—you've trudged through my terrible grammar and ridiculous plot, not to mention the various plot holes along the way still needing to be filled. And since apparently you do read my author's notes, I'll say this: thank you everyone. **

**Even you, the people who didn't click on this when I didn't outright cry 'PAIRINGS PAIRINGS PAIRINGS'… but they're most likely off reading fluff fics anyways.**

**Disclaimer: What should I say today—that I don't own Death Note? And if I did, I'd have no readers due to confusing story-lines and double characters. XD Alright, let's go with that. **

It turned out that Naomi's pretzel-clown-rapist-stalker wasn't any of those things. He was actually an apple-addicted god of death. Personally, she didn't think it was any better than when he had been her frightening stalker.

It had taken him, it, the thing about ten miles of slow jogging and fast-paced hopping for him to finally catch up with her. It wasn't exhaustion that had slowed her down; it was the damn cross-walk and that damn traffic light. She would have run for it if she hadn't been shoved to the back of the mob waiting for the light to turn.

But that was her luck catching up with her once again.

The thing's name was Ryuk. She called it the thing because she wasn't honestly sure if 'it' had a gender. If she had to take a guess, she'd say male, but she could never be sure with supernatural creatures. As soon as it got within talking distance, it asked for apples.

You don't argue with the supernatural—you give them what they want and hope they leave you alone.

"So you're a spirit?" asked Naomi, watching the shinigami down a dozen apples within a record-breaking five seconds. "I thought you couldn't eat food."

The thing broke into laughter that sounded close to something resembling 'hyuk'. When it spoke, it was in the voice she imagined belonged to a Sesame Street rapist. "Nope, hyuk, I'm a god of death."

Naomi raised her eyebrows at the creature. If someone had told her gods of death looked like pretzels, she would have laughed in their faces… but if the thing believed it was a god of death, she wasn't going to argue with it.

"So then… you've come to reap my soul, right?" guessed Naomi; it was either that or he had come to rape her. She sincerely hoped it was the first one.

"Hyuk, hyuk. Humans are so much fun. You know, that's what Light said when he first met me. Well, actually it was more of a shout—I don't know, he started freaking out when he saw me in his room." The thing rambled for another minute, but Naomi wasn't listening. Her attention was fixated on the one name he 'it' had mentioned.

"Did you just say Light Yagami?" she asked as soon as her mind could comprehend that fact. Of course, she realized the shinigami had indeed mentioned Light, but it seemed a good way to change the topic of conversation.

"Uh, yeah? You got anymore apples?" The death god said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which it probably was, but Naomi didn't want to acknowledge that particular insult.

Clearly the death god was a complete moron, but he also seemed to have acquaintances in high places—or more importantly, he knew who Light was and had been in his bedroom, which was more than Naomi could have said.

"No, but if you tell me where he lives maybe I can get some more…." Naomi still had some money that wasn't completely soaked; she could buy the pretzel-god some apples. Oddly enough, spending (she actually wasn't sure how long she was weighted down in that damn pond) weeks trapped underwater hadn't made her hungry or thirsty.

"Whoa, are you another stalker? You know, he already has about three girlfriends. I don't know if he has time for a fourth."

Naomi felt her eye twitch. Not only was the guy a murderer; he was also a sexist bastard. Well, that just made it easier to send him to eternal torment and to spit in his face for what he did to humanity. Oh, when she finally caught up with him the horrors she would inflict on him would make Rambo look like Sesame Street.

"Not exactly, no. I just want to know where he lives. Then you can have all the apples you want." She wasn't going to lie and say that she was hopelessly in love with Light Yagami; she would never sink that low.

"Uh, I don't actually know _where_ he lives. I mean, I kinda do…"

Naomi reeled with the premonition that this was going to be the worst day of her after-life.

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If L didn't have his reputation at stake, Nathanial would rue the day he came into existence. Unfortunately for him, the task force would never allow such a thing to occur unless he had absolute proof that Nathanial was Kira. (Which he didn't, because in the Kira case there was no proof—there were only heart attacks.)

Besides, for all L knew, Nathanial wasn't Kira; for all L knew, the cheating fiend wasn't even human. He was some pale off-shoot of what used to be humanity, which would probably explain why he never seemed to be able to keep a straight thought.

Matsuda, of course, was absolutely enchanted by Nathanial's witty banter (as was L, if he cared to admit it—which he didn't). Everyone else was as close to homicide as they would likely ever get.

He had let him get away. In his humiliation, he had let him simply crawl out the door. Imbecile, idiot, below average intelligence! L had let him _crawl _out the door without a second thought. 'Oh, goodbye, Nathanial-kun—have a nice day.'

Damn that juvenile delinquent to the ninth circle of Hell!

Cheesecake was not making him feel any better. Ice-cream was not making him feel any better. Matsuda, pouting like a small child, was not making him feel better. He felt like he wanted to bash his head into a wall and then pull out a gun and shoot Nathanial thirty-six times through the skull.

Why aim for his heart when he could aim for that confounded mind that kept besting him? Oh, L would have his revenge. Even as he ground his teeth while eating his strawberry cheesecake, he would have his revenge. If only he could get a plausible idea.

"So… who was that, anyways?" asked a bored and rather confused Ide—although if L was right (and L was always right if had any say about it), the others were thinking the very same thing.

"A lunatic who stole my car—"

"A poor young man who from suffers mental and heart conditions,—

"The smartest, most devious, bastard I have ever had the pleasure of meeting," stated L in his bored monotone. Obviously, this caused everyone to turn and stare at him with yet another confused expression—except for Matsuda, who seemed to have already accepted the fact.

"I thought he was nice. I mean, yeah, he was a little weird, and I didn't understand half of what he said. But he actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about." Matsuda shrugged as the task force turned from L to him and back again.

Nathanial must be laughing right now—wherever he had limped off to, he must keeling over in laughter. L could hear it as if he were still sitting on the floor, shirtless, holding the winning hand. If this were a contest, then L would be losing, badly. He had no chance.

"Watari, can you hand me the phone?" asked L suddenly, an idea popping into his mind.

"I thought you didn't like phones." Matsuda held up a finger as if in protest of L's complete hypocrisy, then lowered it and shook his head.

"Just when you use them. Then they annoy me." Before Matsuda could point out how illogical that was, L turned back to Watari. "Watari, do you know the number of the Yagami household? I believe I shall invite Yagami-kun to join the task force."

Yes, Nathanial Lawilett was going to pay very dearly.

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"Check list: one, talk to that bastard Light Yagami." Raito paused, his hand halting for a brief second before placing a small check mark next to 'Light Yagami'.

"Two, find Misa and convince her to give up the Death Note (preferably without marriage, sex, or any form of prostitution involved)." Once more, Raito's hand paused before moving down to the next item on the list, muttering curse words all the while.

"Three, humiliate L, all the while continuing to convince him of my insanity that he seems to feel does not exist." Raito sighed, flipped his notebook shut and drummed his fingers against the park bench.

One third of checklist was done, and the rest didn't look as if it were going to be done any time soon. He wasn't anxious to go talk to Misa, because it would most likely lead to him bargaining for the Death Note by agreeing to marry Misa (although he had technically already done that). He wasn't ready for romantic bargaining quite yet; he would rather shoot himself through the foot before stooping back down to that level. Honestly, romance with the blind puppy—not his idea of fun.

However, he had humiliated L far too recently. If he went back now, he would be chained to a wall and fed table scraps for the rest of his life. The wise thing to do would be to slink around for a couple days, maybe check up on Light again, and take the scraps of Death Note if it proved necessary. And then, deal with Misa.

Deal with Misa. Dear God, why did that sound like a death sentence?

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L instantly doubted his decision when he saw the condition Light Yagami was in; the boy looked as if he had spent the night in an underground cave filled with snakes, chickens, or some equally vicious type of animal.

"I had a long night," was Light Yagami's response. It did indeed look as if he had been having quite the night. L hadn't even had the pleasure of waking him up at two in the morning.

"Well, yes, I was wondering if you could give me your opinion on various videos sent by Kira." L coughed. This was far more awkward then he had anticipated. He had expected Light to be intrigued or excited—something more than the mindless zombie that he appeared to be.

"Let me guess, you asked Nathanial. Then he called you an imbecile, laughed in your face, and flew out the window."

Flew was putting it a bit dramatically, but Light was pretty spot on. And that did not make L feel remotely better about himself. Was it just L, or had everyone else gained the several thousand IQ points necessary to pass him? Was L becoming… dumb?

Inconceivable!

"I was right, wasn't I? That bastard is everywhere." Light sighed before slumping down into the chair L had specifically claimed as his own. "Let's get this over with; I'm tired and it is goddamn three in the morning."

In normal circumstances, L would have pointed out that perhaps Light was squeamish to catch Kira because he was Kira and he would most certainly get the death penalty from L. But, L felt the same way and simply pressed play.

"Why don't you just wait for his royal injured highness to drag himself back here and explain his theories himself? Or do you want me to simply tell you what I think he would say?" asked Light halfway through the second video, clearly exasperated with having to watch shoddy footage.

"You are very insightful today, Light-kun." Insightful indeed—to the point of mindreading, and last time L had checked, normal teenagers weren't telepathic. This could, of course, point to him being Kira, but L had always envisioned Kira as being slightly less depressed.

"I had an enlightening conversation." The suspected murderer sighed, his eyes seeming unusually dull. "Where to begin? First of all, the quality of the video is atrocious. I could do a better job in ten minutes if you gave me some equipment. Secondly, it sounds like they want you dead very badly, as if the videos were more of a threat specifically for you, more than anything else."

If L could grind his teeth without someone hearing….

"Third, this is complete and utter propaganda against the police force. Humans are fickle, Ryuzaki—they'll turn on you with enough flashy images such as this one."

If L could kill someone without anyone knowing….

"Fourth, you realize that they are going to kill you if you don't respond to this. And you're not exactly the type to sit back and let a stand-in take your place—at least, not more than once."

This had to be the worst day of his life….

"Fifth, this person is obviously a complete moron. A crafty moron, but still a moron. This isn't your original Kira--far too out of character…. Is that enough for you, or do you want more?" Light cut his rant off short, slumping in his chair while staring at the blurred gothic letters displayed across the television set.

"And this is all due to an enlightening conversation," asked L dumbly as he wondered where the hell everyone went to get so damn smart.

"And you thought I was insightful." Light's bored, mocking tone did nothing to cheer L up from his humiliation or help him plot his revenge.

"This conversation was with Nathanial, was it not?"

"Small wonder they call you a genius, Sherlock. That was perhaps the greatest use of deductive reasoning I have ever seen." Light's apathetic tone set L on edge, as if talking to Nathanial were something to be expected.

"Light-kun, could by my ears be deceiving me, or is that sarcastic tone one that belongs solely to Nathanial?" That of course, put Light right back into his place. L nearly smiled, but caught himself in time to retain his dignity.

Obviously, it wasn't a comparison the teen much enjoyed, implied more as an insult than anything else L could think of.

"Insanity is catching," replied Light smoothly, his back to L as he turned once more to the television screen and re-listened to the mad sociopath demand L's death.

He was right. Insanity was catching.

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"Alright, I can force Misa to fall in love with me without having to sell myself…. I can do this. After all, this isn't quite as ambitious as trying to become a god. That was a bit much, even for me. This is a tad less difficult…." Raito sighed. If luck prevailed, she would still be worshiping the very ground he touched.

Luck was not something he had a lot of. In fact, he often thought that luck liked to slap him in the face and kick him into the mud. The metaphor wasn't that far off the literal world, either.

"I am too old and too depressed for this. Screw it! Who needs women anyways? I never liked them; they were always too high maintenance for my taste. Nag, nag, nag, and so damn territorial. It's not worth it—there, I said it, and it's not worth it." Raito started to wonder if the people in the park actually listened to his monologue. They had tended to avoid him for the past two hours that he had been wasting away by drinking the blackest coffee he could afford. Not that anyone in their right mind was actually in a public park at three in the morning.

The idea of killing time didn't seem to be working so well. Raito was running out of excuses for why he wasn't doing anything of importance. True, coffee was good—but really, he should have been doing _something_.

"Pah, Light needs time to think things over. L will murder me if he sees me within the next forty-eight hours, and I'd rather not see Misa until she sets up her own appointment. I have plenty of time."

If it had been a normal time of day, Raito may have attracted some stares. Thankfully, three am was not a time that people chose to stroll about public parks. Not unless they were drug dealing (or a reanimated corpse, in Raito's case). As a result, his park bench supplied a lovely view of the thriving city.

He took a sip of his coffee and wondered what his poor younger self was up to.

There were times when he felt as if he didn't even know Light. It frightened him, to know that he was so disconnected to what he used to be, as if he were loosing all the ties he had left to humanity.

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"Are you sure this is his house? Because I swear, if you lead us to the wrong one again…." Naomi eyed the address dubiously, wondering if this normal looking house could possibly be the home of the infamous killer.

The shinigami began to dance on his heels before shrugging and replying, "I dunno."

She had already seen five houses that _might _have been his already; she didn't want to go barging into number six with nothing but a few wet clothes and a pair of fists. After quitting her job, she'd had to relinquish her gun. It wasn't until now that she realized how useful it might have been.

But that was her bad luck coming back to haunt her. Of course she would never have any help when she needed it. That would be asking too much of the fates.

"You don't know, right. Well, I guess I'll just have to wait until someone comes home. In the meantime, you can go off and get some apples or something…. Why are you following me, anyway?" It was a question Naomi had wanted to ask for quite a while, but had never found the right moment to ask. To be honest, she had no idea what prospect she might hold to an apple-addicted god of death. Being already, dead she didn't think she'd make a great victim.

"Oh! Light isn't owner of the notebook anymore. Some guy went out and burned it. Well, actually it's like he's the owner but not the owner—it's weird, his life span went splat when it caught on fire. Made this really weird noise, like _nch… _not even really a word. And then you came along looking for Kira and since I'm still stuck here but not allowed to follow Light I thought I'd follow you instead."

Notebook, what the hell did a notebook have to do with anything? Or life spans, for that matter—Light was dead. He shouldn't even _have _a life span. Clearly, the thing was high on... apples.

"Right, of course, I guess I'll just sit here for a few hours until someone comes in or out. You can just go and get something to eat. I don't know, bring me something too." Naomi turned to watch the thing bound away flapping its ragged wings as it went off in search of shiny red apples.

She hoped he wouldn't come back anytime soon.

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"Ryuzaki, if you want to waste everyone's time even further, go ahead; I know you're just using me to get back at Nathanial for whatever he might have done to you. You are a touchy bastard, and if it weren't three in the morning, I would never in my life actually tell you that." Light sighed slowly, still slumped in his chair, his eyes flicking towards Ryuzaki then back towards the blank television.

L still had the urge to shoot himself, and it wasn't going away. Damn teenagers.

"No, I'm not. It would be horrible to use someone in such a way."

"And that changes something?" replied the suspect before standing abruptly, "Well, not that this hasn't been fun, but I'm going home. My bed waits, and I am not one to disappoint it." Even as he stood, he looked about ready to fall over and nearly stumbled into the doorway as he made his way out.

Clearly, L was losing his touch. No one bothered to listen to him anymore. "Watari-san, get me some tea."

The butler eyed him with an almost exasperated expression before walking out of the room and getting ready to order a pound and a half of sugar with a slight amount of tea to compliment it. Well, at least some things weren't subject to red-headed meddlesome young men.

It was a reassuring thought, to put it bluntly.

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"I hate everyone, I hate everyone, I hate _everyone_. So why in God's name, if I have no money, would I donate to some charity?! Dear Lord, do you know how much I despise whining little brats? I bet they did not have nearly as traumatic and devastating a life as mine. Poverty, ha. Poverty would be easy; poverty would be simple. If I was impoverished, at least I would be human. So you can just put away that donation box right now and _shove it up your ass_!" Why was it that everything was closed at three in the morning except for charities? Raito just had to wonder—what made them so determined?

Human indeed. Yes, he'd be starving, but he'd starved himself to death before…. Or he'd tried. It hadn't exactly worked when he realized he was no hungrier his third week into not eating than the twenty third week. Same with the dehydration tactic. If poverty was all Raito had to deal with, he'd be one happy little beggar.

"You better watch out for Karma. Some day you're gonna be poor and starving—then see how you feel!" The charity worker was obviously tired and cranky as well. Too bad they were dealing with a murderer who had been depressed for over two thousand years.

"News flash: I _already_ am poor and starving. Not to mention, several people wish to kill me; and not you—I mean people who actually have a chance at succeeding. Karma, ha. It's already gotten to me. I doubt there is anything left for Karma to do to me. Except maybe set me on fire, shoot me in the stomach and push me out a two-story window."

Raito felt a red flag raise in his subconscious, wondering if it was a good idea to prophesize any type of immense physical pain—after all, getting hit by two cars was still affecting him. He had bruises on top of his bruises; the last thing he needed was glass lodged in third degree burns on top of bruises on bruises. That could be incredibly painful if he wasn't careful.

"Screw it, I'm going home. Have fun with the night shift, darling." Idly walking by, Raito made sure to kick over the metal box containing the previous donation money. What could he say, misery enjoyed company and depression adored the suffering of others. It made him smile.

**Author's note: Well, what can I say; I did not promise a long update. :P. I've been getting sidetracked by various writing projects so do forgive the tardiness. I couldn't help myself. So as always if you read this far you should at least give me a review, that would be dandy. **


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note: Alas, once again I am sorry. It's Hellsing I blame for the multiple delays, and Invader Zim, and other works… and cowritten pieces… summer…. I've been busy. Anyways, once more thank you to readers who read through both author's notes and filler chapters (that's right, you guessed after reading that last chapter) and my beta. who fixes the run-on sentences. Actually, filler is putting it a tad strongly; it's more a setup chapter…**

**If you guys seriously were reading this for a purpose other than bursting out into spontaneous laughter I have to wonder if you are perhaps more insane than I am. Me, whose inner demon is a two-thousand five-hundred sixty three year old megalomaniac. **

**Disclaimer: If I owned Death Note, the world would be mad, and there would be a magic dance party. I don't own anything else, either. Only my fingers, which are eaten by those evil plot bunnies. CURSE THEM! **

**Beta's Note: This was further delayed because of my workload. It actually would have been posted a good three/four weeks ago if it weren't for me being so freaking slow. SO SORRY. D: I edit this and double-edit plus help write/final draft the co-written projects, plus life…. Gnar. Once again, my bad.**

"You've got to be kidding me," muttered Naomi as she watched the disheveled but unmistakable Light Yagami drag himself through the front door. That was, of course, after he bumped into the frame, dropped the keys, swore rather loudly, and then fell backwards into the bushes.

"This guy is worse than I thought. Not only does he kill my fiancé, kill me, and thousands of other people—he goes off and has one night stands…. What do his parents think?" Naomi was starting to believe that there was no such thing as a victim, but if there were, then Light must have had one troubling childhood.

"Well, I know where he lives. Time for revenge, I suppose." Naomi wanted something special for revenge but so far her brain was so waterlogged that all she could come up with was drowning him in a pond. Drowning hadn't been horrible—not horrible enough for the thing that killed her with a smile.

Thing, half-spirit… it wasn't even human anymore. Naomi was glad—she was glad that he no longer had the right to say he belonged to the human race. No human could talk that smoothly; no human could have so easily killed her.

"He needs a better death than drowning. Maybe being dead makes you strong enough to rip someone's heart out and force them to eat it." That might also be painful for her though, as heart-eating was rather nasty to watch. Dissecting cow eyes in Biology had been enough; she didn't need to watch someone eat a heart. Still, it'd be worth it to see the look on his pretty face.

With that in mind Naomi stood, attempted to wipe off the grass stains on her pants and walked up to the house.

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Light fell down six times on his attempt to climb the stairs. It was single-handedly the worst day of his life. Being stalked by the FBI, killing Lind L. Taylor, having a near panic attack when trying to kill Naomi Misora…. Nothing compared to having to deal with two insane bastards. At least one of them had the decency to admit it, but as far as Light was concerned, they deserved the heart attack that he would eventually deliver. That is, assuming he could find another Death Note.

Nathanial, that sly bastard, knew exactly what he was doing when he burned that thing. It didn't matter that he hadn't gotten the whole notebook. Without the original copy, Light was barely holding onto ownership; it was only a matter of time before he forgot everything. Even then, he might be able to stitch a corset or something like that—perhaps a bracelet. But eventually, he would run out of paper. Nathanial was not a new player to this game; he had obviously used a Death Note before and knew the rules just as well as Light did.

L was less of a threat than the red-headed maniac. L didn't know anything about the Death Note, and therefore wasn't of much interest to Light at the moment. Besides, if anything, Nathanial was making it easier for him to kill people without L breathing over his shoulder. That is, it would be easier if he had more than a few scraps of his Death Note.

Of course, with this new Kira in the picture, things were changing once again. This new Kira was cunning, crafty, but didn't look to be genius caliber like L or Nathanial (despite everything, Light firmly believed that Nathanial was genius material). And they clearly worshipped Kira—a Kira supporter would give up their Death Note for the greater cause. Still, whoever it was had the eyes, and that would mean caution. Who knew what they were really planning?

Clearly, everyone had gone insane—and he meant _everyone_. Even he was feeling a tad loopy, but he assumed that was more due to lack of sleep than any type of brain malfunction. Everyone else, however, was just plain nuts—off their rockers, lost their marbles, et cetera—to the point where it made Light wonder if there was even a point saving a bunch of maniacs when he made his new world.

Utopias aren't defined as having a population gone insane. That did put a tiny wrench in his plans. If only he could solve both problems simultaneously; that would make his life so much easier. And of course he could do it; after all, he was Kira—the original, the first, the only. Light Yagami didn't take no for an answer.

He had never been so happy to see his bed. If anyone ever called him at two in the morning _ever_ again, they would be suffering heart attacks for the rest of their short lives.

"You sick bastard," muttered a purely female voice that Light swore he had heard before—probably less angry and accusing, though.

Indeed, what kind of sick person would deny him sleep yet again in the same night; did they know who they were dealing with?

"Goddamn, woman, do you know what time it is? Dammit, what time is it? It is four in the morning! Speaking of which, what are you doing in my room?!" Light sat up from his bed, forcing his eyes onto the dark figure, noticing the letter opener she clenched in her hand. _His_ letter opener, if he was looking right.

"Shut up, Kira! I have waited… I don't even know how long for this moment, and I am going to enjoy it." She sounded as if she was serious, but the letter opener was a mite bit distracting and if Light had stopped being afraid of Ryuk, he didn't have to be afraid of some dark-haired woman with a blunt knife.

"Is that a letter opener?" he asked curiously, his eyes locked on her 'weapon of choice'.

"That's not important. The important thing is that I am going to kill you… very slowly…."

"Well, of course it's going to be slow," interjected Light, closing his eyes briefly. "It's a letter opener. That thing is about as sharp as a spoon. Couldn't you find anything slightly more threatening?"

Light couldn't help but be amused by her cry of aggravation as she threw the letter opener against a wall. It was at that moment that he noticed the lean shinigami laughing like a hyena. His good humor vanished. Of all the blasted shinigami to betray him, it had to be Ryuk. She probably gave him a bushel of apples. Damn fickle gods of death….

"Well, Ryuk, how did she force the information out of you? Torture? Death threats?" Light said accusatorially at the god of death, giving the best evil eye he could muster—not very impressive, considering the lack of sleep hindering him.

"Yeah, Light, well, she gave me apples. You _never _gave me apples. Remember that whole camera thing? No apples then, either…. Nope, you deserve this you apple-Nazi." Ryuk was apparently just as amused by the dark haired woman as Light was. That girl looked so dreadfully familiar…. A past date, perhaps?

"Apples, I knew it. You should be glad I denied you. You're an addict. You'll never quit unless you go cold turkey." Light felt his energy level dropping; the adrenaline was slinking out of his system once again. He felt his eyes closing, even as he attempted to glare at a certain death god.

"I am trying to be threatening, here! Neither of you are helping! GODDAMMIT!" She looked near temper tantrum. Light felt the corners of his lips twitch up.

"Well, you're failing miserably. Now why exactly are you trying to kill me? You never said." Light was a little confused on that point. Even with the lack of sleep, he was fairly sure that he would remember if someone wanted to kill him.

"Because you're a conceited bastard who kills people so he can proclaim himself a god," she said with a completely straight face.

"I am… not conceited. I am confident. There is a difference."

Just then, it hit him like a freight train. No wonder she looked horrible. She was dead. _He_ had killed her. He very clearly remembered saying farewell to Naomi Misora long before she set foot in his room with a letter opener.

"Oh, my God! You're dead!" he shouted, and for the second time in his life he fell on the floor, covered in fear-produced sweat, stifling the urge to scream. Yes, this was by far the worst day of his life.

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"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!" cried Naomi in utter dismay as her intended victim once more lost interest and began to fall asleep.

"Well, I am now. I'm sorry, but could you threaten me a little later—maybe three in the afternoon? I have had a horrific day and would love some sleep." He certainly wasn't as charming as Naomi remembered; in fact, he looked like a mess. His hair was still in perfect position, but his expression hardly looked as arrogant as she wished.

Oh, well, you couldn't expect everything to go as planned.

"You've had a horrific day. You killed me, as I recall. And I have spent all day being stalked by a pretzel…."

"Shinigami, god of death—not a pretzel," interrupted the murderer offhandedly. How he could do that when a dead person came back to life and threatened to kill him was beyond her.

"Shinigami, then, and then I found that since I'm dead I can't pay for anything with a credit card or convince my landlord to give me back my clothes…." She glared at the murderer before he could interrupt again.

"Since you're dead, I assumed you wouldn't need material objects such as food and money. Was I wrong?" he asked with a blank expression.

"Well, maybe I could have bought a gun! Then maybe you would have three bullets in your goddamn head by now!" shouted Naomi, wishing she had the strength to tear the murderer apart.

"I thought you said you wanted to take this slowly," remarked Light casually, looking slyly at the dancing pretzel, who began to chortle madly. Naomi couldn't help but feel that if taken out of context that quote didn't sound quite so threatening.

"DON'T SAY IT LIKE THAT! Goddamn, I _should _just bash your head against a wall!" Naomi was running out of patience needed to exact revenge; she might just have to face the facts that she had no talent in vengeance and violence.

"Or maybe you should stab yourself with that letter opener," interjected (yet again the bastard) the rather humored Light Yagami.

"I'll stab you with a letter opener!" She felt so childish, but it couldn't be helped—he started it!

"No, you're bashing my head against a wall. You said so yourself."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No."

"Yes, you did."

"WELL YOU'RE A DIRTY MURDERING-LYING-SCHEMING-SON-OF-A-BITCH!"

"Don't insult my mother."

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L looked up from his sixth slice of cheesecake at his poor, overworked task force. His dark glare was left unmet by all but Matsuda, who couldn't find anywhere else to look.

"So, we're going to review these Kira tapes one more time." L could almost taste the agony of his men—good, he wanted someone else to suffer with him.

"But, Ryuzaki, we've watched them five times," complained Matsuda, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"I don't care. If you're really as smart as you seem to be, then you'll be able to come up with something brilliant. Isn't that right, Matsuda-san?" asked L in a snide tone of voice. It was making him feel oh-so-much better.

True it was childish, but L's pride was still aching and nothing had been done to fix it. Not even pestering Light had solved his problems. Things were getting serious when all cheesecake did was make him feel angrier. Someone had to pay.

"But Ryuzaki, I'm not as smart as you are…."

L almost smiled as his ego grew to the size of Godzilla once again. This was why he had hired Matsuda; he was always good use when his ego needed stroking.

"I know, Matsuda-san…. Believe me, I know."

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"So, Ryuk, where did you find the dead broad?" asked Light casually, rubbing his eyes and refusing to stare at the clock. He was not going to fall asleep during his final hour. That would be a complete contradiction to his near omnipotence. Besides, it was just embarrassing.

"I am not a dead broad, I am your executioner!" shouted the dead broad, searching around his room for some better weapon than a letter opener.

"Yes, well, we all have our fantasies," remarked Light, examining his fingernails in mock interest. Maybe she was a troll and would turn to stone as soon as the sun rose. He hoped so; he didn't think he'd make it till five a.m.

"Er, she was walking around a park, sort of yelling, like the angry guys in taxis." Clearly, Ryuk had not gained any more brains during his short absence in Light's life. What a pity. Oh, well. Light was still the greatest genius in the world. L ranked at a low number two, possibly three if that bastard Nathanial was as good as he seemed.

"I was not! You two both deserve to rot in Hell." Clearly, Naomi's impatience hadn't improved within the course of the conversation. Maybe she really was a troll….

That would actually explain a lot.

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Raito knew things had gone downhill when he found Light strapped down to his bed, whistling a World War I marching tune. As if this wasn't disturbing enough, he saw Ryuk cackling in the corner, downing several apples at once, all the while staring at a girl whose face shouldn't have been so familiar.

Raito lived his life as a paranoid bastard. He remembered every enemy he ever made, no matter how brief their encounter. Naomi Misora was no such exception. Besides, she looked about ready to shoot Light's (his) head off.

The problem with the whole 'making up good deeds' was that there were very specific guidelines. Instead, Raito liked to keep it in a short list like form, just to make it easier for him to wrap his head around.

One, never ever kill a human. Whether this was inadvertently or directly, if he so much as looked at a human and it keeled over, he would immediately find himself suffering a heart attack and bleeding profusely. Not to mention waking up to see Light Yagami cackling over a sheet of paper, staring at his first victim on the television set.

Two, don't touch anything. If a human somehow noticed that something moved, or if something was wrong, it was _his _fault—and bam, there went his heart again. Very painful, and he didn't need reminding that it might be a bad idea to mess with things without humans noticing.

Third, protect Light Yagami above all else. For some reason, his lifespan was still tied to Light's. So if his former self wound up getting maimed or dying, it was curtains for Raito, making it a prime objective to keep the little bastard out of trouble.

Although rule number two seemed void, Raito wasn't going to risk losing his skin to number one and three. Heart attacks were painful and he liked to avoid them; besides, he was fairly sure Light was adverse to dying young. Even though his ego was the size of a meteor, they were still related (if not the same person), and that meant something.

"What are you two doing up so early?" asked Raito in mock amusement as he managed to squeeze himself through Light's window for the fourth time, causing Light to stop whistling and break into a glare. Useless ingrate. At least Raito wasn't tied to a bed.

"Dear God, Kira, can't you keep anyone out of your room?" asked a furious, if not frustrated Naomi. Harsh and sarcastic, her words reflected Raito's personality, probably due to the fact that she must be dead.

Raito waited for the panic to set in, where he would realize that she was probably a hit man sent to kill Light and, inadvertently, kill him. Not only was she a hit man, but she was one he knew, making it three times more dangerous. If she went to L, he had no way of protecting Light; he'd be executed before he had a chance to say 'not guilty'. And she probably knew that, so why the hell was she in his room threatening him with a pair of empty fists? Clearly, she had not thought the whole assassination thing through—comforting and disconcerting at the same time. Actually, no, it was just plain confusing.

First, Raito's neat little list of rules gets thrown out the window along with his old Death Note, and now Naomi Misora comes back as some undead vengeful zombie bent on world destruction. Could his life get any worse?

"Apparently not. Hello, Nathanial, have you come to steal my soul?" Light smiled wistfully before closing his eyes and leaning his head back against bed covers. Raito blinked. Before he died, Raito had never had a sense of humor—where did all the cynicism come from? Light was not sarcastic, much less that morbid.

"Er, no, apparently I've come to save your ass. You owe me for this one." Raito turned his attention to Naomi Misora, who had picked up something that looked vaguely like a letter opener and was moving in his direction. Clearly, she meant to skewer him with it. Oh, goody.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" she asked as she jabbed the knife-like object into his shoulder. Luckily, it was too blunt to do any real damage—but it still hurt. Not as much as being hit by a car, though. That had been painful.

"Nathanial Lawilett at your service. Magician, detective, mad man extraordinaire! And at the moment, that poor soul's rescuer, so shut the hell up, bitch, and ditch the knife before I kick your ass." What could he say—he had no patience for terrible assassins. He had enough of them in the first years of his existence. And they just made things ridiculously awkward, especially when they had tried to chase him through terrible traffic.

That was the first time he had decided to test run his terrible driving. It got him out of a nasty scrape with a couple of renegade dead people/things/whatever they were. Of course, it wasn't that pretty when he accidently ran over one of them, then crashed into the other one. Over all, it was a huge mess that everyone learned something from. One, never let Raito near a car. Two, don't try to kill him on his own turf.

He had thought those lessons had struck home with whoever had managed to convince him to curse himself and give up his name. Clearly not, as Naomi the Martyr had shown up in his old bed room with a dull spoon for a weapon.

Of course, not that Raito felt like saying this out loud—he had done a lot of stupid things in his life-time, one of the worst being the time he attempted commit suicide by drinking himself to death, which had almost been as painful as a heart attack. That's actually what started the coffee obsession. Despite what people said, coffee didn't break up a hangover—but it had been worth a shot.

Even thinking about it made him want to puke. Dear God, he hated alcohol. He shuddered and turned his attention back to the 'armed' Naomi Misora, who looked about ready to jab him again, causing him to launch into terrible-coordination-action.

"You punched me!" exclaimed Naomi Misora while rubbing her red nose, which he had failed to break. Damn good for nothing dead limbs.

"Yeah, well, you were about to jab me again!" sputtered Raito while moving forward and tripping Naomi before she could say anything else. He was having far too much fun with this.

"Nathanial, you bastard! Get out of my room before I kill you!" shouted a more awake Light, who twisted within his bonds so that he could glare at Raito with a look that told everyone exactly who he was. Apparently, it wasn't a night for subtleties, and Light was over his good humor. Good—so was Raito.

"You, kill me? Really, Light, I didn't think you capable! I mean, beside the fact that you look like a teenage girl in a terrible bondage-slave situation, you really aren't that threatening. Oh, you looked at me—oh, my heart, it hurts, it hurts! Really, try to get a beard. Maybe that will help a little to make you look more masculine."

Raito knew exactly what hurt the most, and the woman jokes were always the worst. He remembered the humiliation even after being dead for God knew how long. They still hurt. It was the worst thing in the world to be told he looked more feminine than his younger sister.

"You aren't going to find my Death Note. Even if she kills me, I'll take it to the grave." Light was sneering, now clearly affected by Raito's insults.

"No, because she isn't going to kill you. Do you have that little faith in me?" asked Raito, trying to judge his abilities as a rescuer. They weren't looking too good. But hey, he had been a pro at killing.

"Yes, I really believe that even though she has nothing but a letter opener, she is more likely to kill me than you are to save me. In fact, your being in the same room as her might doom me anyway."

Raito hated to say it but his younger self had a point…. Damn.

Of course, five seconds later, Light's point really struck home. Naomi Misora, in all her wisdom, had decided it was a good idea to lift the false drawer and thereby trigger the explosion. Raito began to wonder if this day could possibly get any worse.

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Naomi hadn't been listening very closely to the stranger, whoever he was. But he was a useful distraction to search for a better weapon—for God's sake, the boy was a mass murderer. He had to have a weapon more lethal than a letter opener. And without further ado, Naomi Misora went digging through Kira's desk drawers.

At first there was nothing too exciting—pens, diaries, textbooks. Nothing dangerous or painful enough for her taste. Reaching below the diary, she realized that he might have a false drawer. After all, he was Kira—he must have expected people to paw through his drawers. Well, she found him now.

With a sigh of relief, she lifted the false bottom, turned her head at a muttered curse and giggling from the mad death god, and was engulfed in fire. No, her revenge was not going well at all.

**Author's note: FINALLY! Anyway, review folks. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note: Bonjour mes amies, how are you all doing on this fine day? Whatever day this is—because I am guessing that, as usual, I have delayed updating for at least two months. Remember, no updating promises. I am not the updating ninja so DON'T BRIBE ME! MEH!**

**A word of advice, dear readers. When asked to describe your inner demons, LIE! No one really wants to know! And thank you to Scourge—you rock my socks and the grammar in this story.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, but you guys knew that already. **

Tied to a bed, dead out of his mind—and he really didn't care about either of the issues. He just wanted some sleep, before he died from insomnia. He didn't even feel motivated enough to kill someone, and that was saying something. Especially considering the fact that he had been tied to a bed by a zombie (what else could Naomi Misora be? She certainly had the brains of a zombie)… and that the one man he hated more than L himself had come to save his life. Ryuk was laughing his ass off, not even bothering to beg for apples.

Light wanted to kill someone. Deep down in his heart, he was sure he did. But he was too tired to bother to move his arms (plus, being strapped to a bed didn't help). He could do nothing but watch. It was officially the worst day of his life, and somehow, it had managed to involve Nathanial. It could not get worse.

That was until his desk lit on fire; he blinked and turned his head to look at the torched desk and his poor, failed murder victim, who seemed to be panicking. Perhaps it was because her hair was slowly being eaten up by flames—or maybe she was just paranoid. Light didn't care; he just wanted to get sleep.

If he didn't get sleep, he'd have to strangle someone, and that would just be annoying. Damn sleep-disturbers.

* * *

"Should we do something?" asked Raito, attempting to feel somewhat guilty for watching Naomi Misora flail about while her hair caught fire. It was a disconcerting feeling, and he didn't like it; he especially didn't like the fact that he thought it was somewhat amusing. The next time someone called him monster, could he really argue?

"Sleep, sleeping would be nice." Clearly, Light had reached his limit, not even opening his eyes to watch as Naomi cursed and attempted to stop the flames by rolling on the carpet, not even caring that his room was going to smell like smoke for at least three months.

And so, standing in a room with his former sleep-deprived self, a recently resurrected woman who was currently on fire, and a clown-faced apple addicted god of death, Raito decided to do the only thing he could think of.

Whipping off his jacket, he threw it over Naomi Misora's head and tackled her, managing to crash onto the floor dangerously close to the desk (which was still on fire) and bruise himself in at least seventeen different places. Clearly, Raito's emergency reflexes weren't in full motion (along with his normal reflexes, for that matter) and his thought process had been shortened down to one option. Once again, his 'What would L do?' bracelet had failed him. He should really stop taking advice from inanimate objects.

"What the hell?!" Smothered beneath Raito's jacket, it was hard to make out the words, but Raito assumed she was swearing…. He would be swearing in the situation; hell, he would probably screaming, burning things—maybe even pillaging some villages while he was at it. Maybe in a past life (before the whole Light Yagami business), he had been a Viking.

"Nathanial, if you are going to rape the woman, for God's sake, don't do it in my bedroom."

Rape? Raito blinked and looked down at himself, shirtless again (apparently he hadn't just thrown off his jacket), pressing down upon a poor woman with his clothing on top of her head. Well, saying awkward would only heighten his embarrassment.

"Please, if I was going to rape her, I would have taken off my pants." The woman's struggling heightened, because apparently both she and Light thought he was about to take off his pants and rape her. They should have known better—Raito was firmly asexual and planned to stay that way. He had no desire to rape anyone, least of all a woman who wanted to murder him.

"… Please don't. I've had a bad enough day as it is; I don't need any more life scarring experiences." Still tied to the bed, Light shuddered slightly, closing his eyes against the thought of his future self lying on top of one of his former victims, pale, starving and naked. Raito tried to shut his mind against the thought as well (and failed, like he failed at everything he tried), and eventually settled on being mildly annoyed instead of scarred for life.

"Do you know how old I am? I am pretty goddamn sure I'm impotent. Even if I wanted to (which I don't), I doubt I could knock up this broad. The pants are staying on." His eye twitched. He wanted some coffee—coffee would make the whole situation less painful. "Just because I look like a rapist drug addict does not mean I am one. I have better things to do than rape… alright, I don't, but still, this is a matter of pride. Don't spoil the moment by asking me not to rape someone when I wasn't planning on raping them in the first place. If I wanted to rape her, I would have done it with or without your permission, so screw you, I can do whatever I want!"

Irritation flooded his mind. Did that boy really think he was capable of forced sex? He looked like a starving doll; Naomi Misora would have no problem overpowering him if she really wanted to. And besides that, there was the whole issue with sex, anyway. He wanted nothing to do with it—he never had. Of course, he'd been forced into it once or twice. But to actually start the intercourse, good Lord, no, not a chance in hell that was ever going to happen. Even now, when his chances at freedom rested upon the chance that he'd get some poor sucker to fall in love with him. He would not reduce himself to petty sex. He'd rather drown in a vat of acid than be reduced to that. (He'd have to go find some wood to knock on later.)

"I didn't particularly want to know all of that…" muttered Light Yagami, yawning at the end of the sentence and muttering a few curses. Naomi Misora continued to struggle futilely under his shirt and Raito began to wonder if he should let her out.

"Well then why did you ask?"

More struggling.

"I didn't ask. You told me."

Naomi began to reach out for Nathanial's face and attempted to scratch his eyes out. He leaned upwards and ignored her.

"You prompted me to tell you."

Struggle.

"No, I didn't."

Struggle.

"Yes, you did."

Less struggling.

"No, I did not."

No struggling.

"Yes, you did you lying bastard!"

"I think you suffocated her. She looks dead."

Raito looked down and realized he had cut off Naomi Misora's supply of oxygen, and that he should probably take her to the hospital. (He wasn't entirely sure how to revive someone who should never have been alive in the first place.)

* * *

"Get out of my house." Light Yagami spoke softly and quickly to Nathanial, hoping to contain the lethal promise those words provided. They must have, because the red-headed man draped Naomi Misora over his shoulder and walked out the front door (shirtless) without a glance behind.

Annoying, vexing, irritating buffoon Nathanial had managed to walk in and out of his life again without so much as a reason why. He showed up out of nowhere, climbing through his window and knocking out a woman who had been trying to kill him, then trucking her off to the hospital as fast as he could. There was something severely wrong with that man.

But they were gone, and he could finally sleep. Kira could wait, the world could wait—so long as he got some Goddamn shut eye.

The problem with Light's life was not that it wasn't exciting—or not interesting, for that matter. It was the fact that every divine being alive detested him. That included Fate, who had a keen sense of irony… for although Light didn't know it, Fate had listened in on his conversations more than once, and had the wit to do something about it. The blonde girl stood in front his house with a blank expression on her face. He said blank because he could think of no other word to describe her. She seemed to ooze nothingness—dull, boring, completely uninteresting.

The dullness bled from her skin and seemed to Light the equivalent of a missing limb. Something was off about her, but he just couldn't place his finger on it, and he was too damn tired to think about it. He was too damn tired to think of anything—what he would do with the scant pieces of Death Note he had left, what he would do with Nathanial, what he would do with L… it made him even more exhausted than he already was.

The girl, she stood there, staring at him as if he were a god. If it weren't so ironic, Light might have been frightened for his life. Instead, he just smiled and tried to contain the mad laughter to a minimum. Being somewhat drained of energy, he didn't think he succeeded. This was what he got for trying to change the world—torture by sleep deprivation.

And it was Goddamn hilarious.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" It was a polite question, considering the day he'd been having, and the fact that she was dressed like a maid, standing on his doorstep, with a very short skirt. Whatever she asked, he wasn't going to pay.

Actually, he'd draw out the cash, light it on fire, and throw it in her hair. Yes, that sounded like a good way to treat a role-playing hooker.

She didn't speak for another minute, continuing to stare with a disconcerting intensity at his face. He felt like slamming the door and running back inside, but Light wasn't afraid of prostitutes, even assertive ones…

That came dressed as rosary wearing maids…

With frighteningly dull brown eyes that seemed to see straight through his soul…

That still hadn't said a word….

Light found himself wondering if it was his sleep-deprived imagination that had conjured her up. People thought his world vision was scary—they should have seen his sexual fantasies. Because apparently they involved maids, porcelain life-sized dolls, a lot of lace, and the word Lolita screaming in the back of his head.

Perhaps he did need therapy after all.

"Light Yagami, you look exactly the same." Her voice had no emotion, no tone. It made L's monotone sound like an overzealous actor. He blinked. Add completely dull to the list of why his sexual fantasies needed to be rewired—all she was missing was the hand cuffs.

"Again, who the hell are you?" If she answered, 'his sexual fantasy come to life,' he might just have to crawl into a hole and die, no doubt accompanied by Ryuk's incessant laughter. That sounded like oodles of fun.

"You don't remember me." Of course he didn't remember her. If he had gone down to Tokyo's red light section, he'd make bloody well sure he wouldn't remember it after.

"No, and I'm rather glad I don't." Dear God, it must have been horrid. Why would he have done that to himself? Surely not boredom—he had more dignity than that. He prayed he had more dignity than that; he doubted he had more dignity than that…

"You don't remember anything." That horrid voice that grated on his ears—so inhuman. His eye twitched. Perhaps it would have been better if Nathanial had stayed. If anyone could get rid of an insane hooker, it would be the red-headed maniac.

Damn the irony.

"Er, no…. Exactly how much do I owe you?" He didn't have _that_ much money, but she didn't look too expensive…. He could probably haggle his way out of this one; it was just a necessary sacrifice of being Kira, paying off your hookers before L found out. Yes, perfectly necessary.

"Your soul." She whipped out a blood-splattered paper, covered in illegible scribbles and a few blotches of ink (where she pulled it out from was another matter entirely).

Somewhere, a Shinigami was laughing; somewhere, a lucky man might have been sleeping; but Light Yagami was slamming the door, locking it twice and running up to hide in his smoke-filled room before the blonde woman could say another word.

* * *

Naomi didn't like being suffocated by a jacket, not one bit. She liked it even less when the jacket was removed and she realized that she had been carried into the middle of nowhere by a shirtless man who looked like he was starving.

Some women might have called it romantic, being carried off into the moonlight by a shirtless exotic (the red hair was rather interesting) male in a wedding-style pose. Naomi was not some women. Naomi was sane, and that was why she was scared out of her mind.

"Here we are," he said triumphantly, dropping her haphazardly onto the ground with a lazy smile. She jumped backward about ten feet to increase the amount of distance between her and his clearly visible ribs.

"Where exactly are we?" she asked, brushing off the grass stains on her burnt clothing, ignoring the way his infuriating smile that never seemed to go away.

"I don't know." He could at least have the decency to put his clothes back on, but he seemed perfectly comfortable standing half naked for the whole world to see, completely content to allow Naomi to suffer the sight of his starving torso. He probably knew it, too. Bastard.

"Why did you save him? I had him—I would have had the bastard! Why did you stop me? You know what he is, don't you? He's a monster, a villain—the world is better off without him."

The man shrugged, the bones in his shoulders seemingly popping out his body before falling back into place. She swore she had seen him before, seen his brilliant red hair and his delicate features—because despite the hair and the hollow cheeks his features were rather delicate, almost feminine, and so damn familiar. If only she could place it.

"Monster? I suppose he is a bit of a narcissist, but monster is a tad harsh. He is just as monstrous as you or I—he is only human, after all." The smile, did it ever leave his pale face? She wanted to scrape it off.

"He kills people, thousands of people, and you don't think he's a monster?"

He shrugged again. Dear God, why couldn't he just pick up the damn shirt and put it on?

"Everyone's a monster—especially the people who don't admit it."

The shirt was lying there, so tempting just to pick it up and shove it in his arms and curse at him to put the blasted thing on before she stabbed her eyes out with a letter opener. She resisted the temptation.

"So, why exactly am I here?" If only he was Light Yagami—then she would have no qualms about spilling his blood. As it was, she was a little hesitant about unleashing her anger on a housebreaking lunatic.

"Because, I don't trust zombies." Blunt, concise, and very irritating. He truly hit the nail on the head. Zombie, she had turned into a bloody zombie—a drenched, burnt, miserable zombie, hell-bent on revenge that no one would understand. Not even an insane man.

Of course, she did have the evidence. She had the theory, and more importantly, she had L. Oh, it had been years ago, not to mention she had been dead for some of the time—but surely he would remember her, her solving the case for him. He owed her a favor or two, if only for his reputation's sake.

"And I'm a zombie, is that it?"

"Possibly. Either that or a vampire, but zombie was more demeaning, so I decided to go with that."

He was trying to piss her off and she knew it, but dammit, it still managed to work. She was somewhat offended at being called a zombie… very offended.

"Yes, well, that's what you get for trying to commit homicide with a letter opener. I seriously doubt both your sanity and your brain capacity. I mean, that even beats the time I tried to drink myself to death. That's pathetic, and it beats that time I tried to seduce myself in an act of complete and utter boredom. Dear God, I think I haven't been able to look in a mirror for years. Yes, your plan beat all of those combined. I feel happy—I haven't felt happy in ages. Your suffering makes me feel better!"

The red-headed man was clearly a sadist, and insane. Oh, dear God. Naomi needed to run away fast. She turned and tried to book it in the opposite direction of him. Hopefully, L was still breathing—that way she could get this nutcase in jail.

"Come back! I need to cause you pain, dammit!"

* * *

"Er, Light, are you okay?" Sayu knew Light had been acting weird since… well, ever, really, but clearly he had hit an all-time low. Pasty, sweating, and ridiculously twitchy, Light looked ready to have a nervous breakdown.

"DID YOU SEE THE HOOKER OUTSIDE?!" He had also never screamed that loudly before. His hair was a mess, and Sayu wasn't sure whether she should be frightened for her life or amused. She went with frightened for her life.

"No?"

"She found out about the apples, Sayu. SHE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE APPLES!"

Sayu decided that it was a good time for Light to lose his sanity, as he was still young and good looking enough to be declared as tragically romantic—even with the half chuckles escaping him as he watched the door in unease.

"The apples?"

"The ones I sold my soul for. DAMN YOU, RYUK, YOU AND YOUR DEATH APPLES!"

Sayu decided that she didn't particularly want to know, and went back to bed.

* * *

L Lawliet was feeling marginally better, if only for the cheesecake and Matsuda. Because somewhere deep in his black detective's heart, he was a sadist, and enjoyed watching other people suffer—people like Matsuda, who were too dumb to figure it out. L loved his job immensely.

Kira be damned. L didn't need to be hunting down Kira to have a good time.

* * *

Ryuk wasn't quite sure where to go. He could go back to watch Light, but he had a vague feeling he wouldn't be too happy… or he could follow the zombie and the other Light, but they didn't look too happy either. He technically should have been back in the Shinigami realm, but really, where was the fun in that.

And not all of the Death Note was burned. Light still had managed to save one or two pieces—but how long could those last him? A week, two days, forty minutes? Ryuk was very confused, and hungry, and he wanted a few apples.

That was why he went to the grocery store.

* * *

**Author's Note: FINALLY, I INTRODUCE MISA! I think I deserve an award for that one. Oh, and yes, I know it's confusing, but I'll explain, hopefully next chapter. Besides, this story is supposed to be ridiculously confusing. Why else would you be reading it?**

**By the way the delay was not actually my fault this time, I blame Odysseus and Athena's fan girl moments. Curse them. **

**Reviews would be dandy, and who knows, maybe bribing me this time round will work. I doubt it. **


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note: Got a few questions about Misa last chapter, to be expected, after all this story is anything but sane. If you've read up to the sixteenth chapter I think you may have realized that it's not about where the story is going but about how it gets there, whether it gets there through thousands of sub-plots, bipolar characters, sleep deprivation, or revenge. Sands of Time is a parody that thinks it's a serious fic, hence it makes absolutely no sense. That's my two cents anyway, but what does the author know? **

**Thanks to reviewers, readers, and of course the people who passed this fic over. No doubt searching for that Father L fic hangs out with his successors. Yes… Enough about that, on with the disclaimer. **

**My beta was swamped with other fics not to mention the strange and terrifying place that is REALITY, so I decided to post without her. Meh. Please go ahead and point out grammar errors, but try not to let them annoy you too much.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Death Note you think I would be writing this nut job of a story? The answer is no. **

Raito didn't know what to do, after losing sight of Naomi Misora he was left once more with nothing to do but review his options. Bother Light (already done, and best to let the poor boy get his sleep or who knew what would happen), Bother L (that sounded far too ominous to be successful), Find Misa and bribe the Death Note from her (that sounded like prostitution in the making) or try to find Naomi Misora wherever she ran off to.

Raito had a very good idea where she ran off to. If he died and then came back to life in a manner that put Lazarus to shame, his mind set on vengeance against a being whose intelligence put even the greatest minds to shame, there would be only one place he would even think of going. L Lawliet was an asshole, one who may or may not have deserved to die (but who died anyway) but he also was brilliant and had many resources at his disposal.

That and L was leading the investigation against Kira, any information and he'd be jumping up and down with glee. With Naomi's testimony they would have Light and if they had Light they would have Raito, and if they had Raito then he'd be screwed.

And worse yet, L probably wouldn't kill either of them (because when they found out about Light they would have to find out about Raito) he'd probably just stick them in an insane asylum where they would get raped and abused by the lead doctor who would no doubt be a sadist. And then they would go insane and develop multiple personality disorders (because being two people at once wasn't already a multiple personality disorder in itself…) probably become a masochist and develop Stockholm syndrome with L of all people and mistake it for love in a moment of pure and utter insanity. And then L would come and visit seeing what a wreck they were and would attempt to piece back together their broken mind only to create a rather creepy relationship that scarred everyone for life.

Yes, clearly finding Naomi Misora was a priority. Not only that but he was beginning to like her, she was different, she actually came back from the dead in order to kill him. Most people wouldn't have bothered, L hadn't bothered after all (the L he had killed not the L that already existed), the fact that she was willing to kill Light with a letter opener was something Raito could respect. Plus if she was dead at least it was someone who would understand half of what he said, unlike the other people he had managed to hold a conversation with.

Noami Misora was interesting, plain and simple. He wondered why he had never seen it before, perhaps she was more entertaining when she believed her life to be threatened by a shirtless maniac. Either way it was hilarious to watch.

Raito shrugged on his shirt and jacket, whistling a tune as he began to saunter down towards L's hotel room. Things were looking up from a few hours before.

* * *

Light didn't know how long he'd been up anymore, he'd lost track of the hours needless to say it was morning and he still hadn't gotten any sleep. And he felt his mind slipping down the mountain at an incredibly fast rate, Light didn't do well without sleep, it made him paranoid. It's not that he wasn't as capable of thought when he didn't sleep it's just that he began to think the world was pitted against him and L seemed a lot more powerful than he actually was.

He began to speak like an old man. But this time he had something to call a legitimate threat, or so his sleep deprived paranoid mind told him, a whore after his soul was no small matter after all. So Light waited in his room, pacing, cursing, scheming, planning, cursing some more, and fretting in general.

Sayu peeked into his room, (he had purposefully left the door unlocked that if she came through the window he would have a quick getaway) her expression a mixture between boredom and confusion. "Er Light, did you sleep at all?"

No of course not Light didn't have time to sleep the prostitute was after his soul, after his soul apples, she must have been after the death note too, what else could she mean by soul. Unless it was a metaphor for something else entirely, maybe she wanted a tie; he could give her a tie… But what if she strangled him with it, and then he'd be as good as dead. Wait no he would be dead.

He wondered what dying felt like, it sounded painful. Like being dragged to the ballet, only with someone shooting you to death, or something like that. Did prostitutes who made pacts with the devil die? He didn't know. He wondered if he could kill her, or if she really was a figment of his imagination. Because if she was a hallucination then clearly he would have to kill himself in order to kill her. And that would be painful…

"Light I think you should go back to bed." Sayu again, what was she doing there? Didn't she have anything better to do with her time, especially when hookers were scheming against him. Right, plan, he had to come up with a plan that didn't involve neck ties…

He wondered if he should go and buy more apples, they appeared to be running low… Wait, apples were the problem. It was those damn apples that had gotten him into trouble! He needed to find the apples!

"I'm going to the grocery store, I'll be back later!"

That prostitute would never know what hit her.

* * *

Of course when Naomi Misora arrived at the NPA headquarters it was an idiot who greeted her, granted his name was not moron but rather Matsuda (close enough for her purposes). First off, for the longest time he didn't realize that she should have been dead. It was a little insulting, to realize L hadn't given a damn for her sacrifice, that she had slipped through the cracks in death as well as in life. Well it was more than a little insulting, it was very insulting.

"Misora-san, why are you grinding your teeth?" asked the man with the puppy dog eyes that she wanted to gauge out with a spork. Men, they were all insufferable, she would be far better off if they all died in some nuclear explosion.

"No reason." There were too many reasons to list, why bother spelling it out for an idiot.

"And why do you want to speak to L?"

She had told him at least a dozen times, explained her theory, practically screamed Kira's name in the moron's face and all he did was blink and ask again. She was beginning to understand why Kira had been so quick to kill, but she wouldn't kill for crimes, she'd kill for idiocy. Which in her eyes was just as bad as murder.

"He owes me a favor." And she'd be dammed if she didn't get it. After all clearly she couldn't kill Kira herself, she'd get L to do it for her, execute Light Yagami-san before he had a chance to weave himself out of her grasp again. A letter opener, honestly what had she been thinking.

But this time, this time he was screwed.

* * *

Light was surprised to find Ryuk in the grocery store, he was even more shocked to find Ryuk stealing the apples right off the shelf and eating them. In fact he had gathered quite a crowd, most people looking slightly confused and awed, clapping every once in a while when apple after apple disappeared into Ryuk's jagged mouth.

Well he wasn't that surprised but he thought he taught Ryuk better morals than that.

"Ryuk, what the hell are you doing?" he asked, ignoring as all the shoppers turned to stare at him, someone began clapping again assuming he was part of the illusion. They were just waiting for the magic trick to end. Ryuk held an apple in midair, Light began to frown. Really, stealing apples right in front of humans, it was pathetic.

"Whoa Light what happened to you?" The apple was lowered and the shinigami hovered closer to the very tired murderer peering down into his eyes. Clearly Light wasn't looking his best, normally when nervous Light tended to act like a grumpy old man, he had gone past old man. Ryuk actually looked somewhat frightened, which meant that Light was looking about as immortal as the god of death.

"I had a long day." He said bitterly, first he had been dragged into analyze that damn video at L's whims. Then the Naomi Misora had come back from the dead letter opener in hand ready to stab him through. Then Nathanial decided to join the awkward party dragging Misora out the door with him. And then to top it all off some whore came to his door brandishing a blood stained paper claiming to be after his soul. Yes, that sounded like a very fun day.

Light didn't do well without sleep, details started getting hazy and he wasn't sure whether he had slept with a hooker to relieve stress or whether Naomi Misora had been some grand nightmare. He also wasn't sure whether or not he should be called Kira, Faust, or Icarus. It was all so confusing, and then the apples… There was something about the apples or had he sold his soul for the notebook instead. Maybe that was a nightmare, yes he remembered now.

It was right after the whole FBI incident when he had stayed up for three days straight in a paranoid fit that would make Naomi Misora herself look trusting and naïve. In the dream he had sold his soul to Ryuk for an apple that would destroy children's television… then the capital had exploded and it had rained blood… then Raye Penber had come back from the dead to lecture him… And then he had a tea party with David Bowie. Yes it was one awkward dream. But then why would the hooker want his soul if it hadn't been real? Why did the hooker want his soul in the first place?

Interpol was convinced he didn't have a soul, most organized religions were convinced he didn't have a soul (in fact the Christians were still marauding about the countryside proclaiming him to be the antichrist). What made the hooker any different, and goddammit what was he doing in a grocery store?

"Ryuk, this is a grocery store. People can see that apple you're waving about in the air." Light gritted his teeth and dug out the logic that was left somewhere in his rotting mind, clearly he needed a nap or two.

"Yeah well you looked pretty busy and it's not like you own the death note anymore, without that thing you aint supplying the entertainment you used to. In fact it just might be time to write your name and head off home…" Here Ryuk grinned and Light paled, somehow his day had just gotten ten times worse.

* * *

"What do you mean Naomi Misora is back from the dead?" L felt like dropping the phone, his good mood blown away with the shock of the world's new Lazarus. L had always stuck by his atheism but lately with Kira running about pretending to be the antichrist and Naomi now returning from the dead L wasn't sure what religion to convert to.

"I thought she was just missing, you never really said she was dead." Matsuda sounded slightly confused on the other line, wondering at the angered tone of L's voice. And it was true L had never said the word dead but he had assumed everyone knew that Kira had offed her in some dark alley. When he had said missing it meant, oh she's the new skeleton in Kira's closet let's look to see what else is in there. He hadn't expected her to reappear unless as a watery corpse.

"Yes well, generally when Kira kills people they tend to stay dead." If Naomi Misora could come back to life what was stopping the rest of his bodies from getting up and doing a jig? Maybe Matsuda was wrong though, maybe he was being slightly more of an idiot than usual, maybe he mistook some beggar as the ex-FBI agent. There was hope again.

"Oh here Ryuzaki, she wants to talk to you." Matsuda cheerfully spoke his pseudonym reminding L once again just where he had stolen that name from. Well, Naomi Misora wouldn't find it too hilarious a reminder… Hope was leaving as fast as his good mood.

"Hello Misora Naomi, I hear you've escaped Kira's clutches…" L ran out of words, really what did you say when confronting Lazarus. How'd hell treat you? Do they serve good wine up there? What's the weather like? He didn't have much experience when confronting the impossible.

"Ryuzaki? Not only were you no help on the case but you stole the bastard's name so you can rub it in everyone's face. Wow, that is… I don't even know how I can possibly convey to you how shallow and childish that is. At first I thought you just were a selfish bastard who was set upon ruining my life and giving me no credit for the work I did, but now you're possibly even worse."

Yes that was definitely Naomi Misora's nagging voice, he remembered the days when she actually respected him. When she had called him asking, why the hell there was a man rolling around with jam on the floor and when did she get paid?

"You should know I'm only coming to you because I have no other choice. I would kill Kira off myself but unfortunately a letter opener didn't seem to do the trick. Besides it would be much more humiliating for him to be caught by you despite you and your team's utter incompetence. That and you will no doubt torture him which will be nice and I'll find some popcorn and give a little wave every minute or so. That's the only reason I'm giving this information to you and working with your team of middle aged men. Not because I respect you or like you, in fact I wish you would kill yourself. I really, really do."

Clearly being raised from the dead did nothing for her tongue or her temper. She sounded like she needed a good bout of therapy.

"Well, isn't that lovely." Muttered L into the telephone with a false tone of gratitude. Unfortunately he did have to add her to the team, because she no doubt knew who Kira was and how he killed. He'd have Light Yagami behind bars in no time, all thanks to her… Damn the woman to the deepest pit of hell for beating him to Kira's identity first.

"I'll be over in ten, try to hold in your excitement." Her dry sarcastic tone was cut off when the line went dead, she hung up on him. Naomi Misora, fiancé of the dead FBI agent had the nerve to hang up on L himself.

"Watari," L watched as his butler lifted his head, waiting for the command with a tired expression. "Remind me to hire a hit man to kill Naomi Misora when this is all over."

* * *

"What? But Ryuk, I can be entertaining without the notebook!"

Light did not want to die like this, trapped in a grocery store with a god of death and a crowd of intrigued shoppers. No, he would not die like this. He would find a way out of it, a loophole, all he needed was Ryuk's attention.

"Eh maybe, but I won't be able to watch remember? I'll have to go back to the shinigami realm and it won't be the same watching from a distance." The shinigami shrugged, reaching for another apple while Light's mind worked itself into overdrive.

"Well then you can just drop another notebook." It seemed a simple enough solution.

The group of shoppers pointed at him and began to whisper, looking from him to the apple in confusion one of the small children reaching forward to tug on Light's leg. Light ignored them, far more focused on the problem of his imminent demise rather than the issue of his insanity.

"Hey Light, it's not like these things grow on trees. I can't just get another one, I mean I barely got the last one." Ryuk patted the notebook swinging by his hip, the only death note left in the world at the moment.

"Then steal one, you say shinigami do nothing but gamble surely their eyes aren't always focused on their death notes." After all how had Ryuk managed to get the last one, it couldn't have been easy, but he could do it again if he had to.

"Yeah, but you gotta trick the king in order to do that and that's not exactly easy you know?"

"You obviously did it last time it can't have been that goddamn difficult! So do it again!" Light was screaming, the crowd of shoppers took a step back, one of the employees moving forward, tapping on his shirt.

"Uh sir, you're going to have to leave now…" The meek little bag boy was unheard by the angry murderer or the god of death.

"You make it sound like it's grocery shopping," whined the shinigami.

"It is like goddamn grocery shopping, Ryuk! Goddammit it's not that difficult!"

The employee tapped harder on Light's shoulder even daring to tug on the sleeve of his shirt, "Sir you will have to leave the store's premises now."

Light sighed, closed his eyes. He couldn't die in a place like this, it would be humiliating, it wouldn't even be as if he lost, just was taken out of the game early by circumstance. No, he needed time, time for Ryuk to get another notebook and time for him to be as entertaining as possible.

"A year, Ryuk. You give me a year to be entertaining while you work on getting a death note. If by the end of that time you don't have a death note and I no longer remember what a notebook is I suppose I'll be good as dead anyway." He'd have to wear pieces of the death note at all times or else his memory would disappear, things were looking bad, he had one year to dispose of L without a death note.

Because only his floundering about at murder with his bare hands could he be Ryuk's idea of entertainment, he would survive both L and Ryuk. Even if he ended up killing L with a ballpoint pen in order to do it.

* * *

"So Misora-san, what's the weather like in Hell?" L had run out of conversational topics pretty damn fast, and now was crouched into his usual fetal position staring down Naomi Misora trying to find the secret of conquering death. So far she looked moderately normal, a little pale perhaps, thin, but definitely human.

Her eyebrow raised, and yet she didn't look amused at all. She held her coffee in front of her but didn't take a drink, he wondered if the recently dead felt any need to drink or eat, he wondered if she even needed to breathe or if it was just habit.

"Tolerable, how is it being a complete and utter bastard?" she asked sounding even less agreeable than she had in their phone conversation. L nodded slowly, sipping at his caffeinated syrup.

"Tolerable, as you would say. Matsuda says you came to the NPA building this morning, with information, you mind sharing it?" Best to cut to the chase with angry women, less time spent that he actually had to deal with them. Soon Naomi Misora would be out of his hair and on a talk show where she condemned all religions to being nothing but lies.

"Yes I did, and you are going to hate every minute of it. Light Yagami is Kira." She smiled at the annoyed look on L's face. So L was right, that was nice to know if only he had caught Yagami first. In the back of the room Soichiro looked near a second heart attack, it couldn't have been good for the old man.

"Any reason as to why you believe this? You see in the realm of solving crimes we have this thing called evidence, and without it the case can't be solved." L didn't think she appreciated the joke.

"Well I'm an eye witness, he confessed to my face…" She looked slightly confused and then blew out her cheeks, "I don't actually know how he kills people, so there's not much cold hard evidence. But, what I do know is that Kira can kill without using heart attacks. Because of the bus jacking my fiancé was on…"

L blinked, at the last sentence cursing himself for not noticing it. That damn woman was beating him at his own game. Naomi went on to explain her theory about the bus jacking, Matsuda's eyes glazed over and Soichiro turned from a red color to a nice fuchsia. Why was everyone getting so much smarter than him, he was supposed to be the best, goddammit all this woman worked below him!

"So, clearly we have even more reason to suspect Light Yagami… This is very useful information…"

If only he had realized it first.

* * *

Raito realized as he stepped casually into the hotel room that things had just gone to hell. Naomi Misora and L were talking, plotting his demise, Light would be in the electric chair before he could blink if this kept up. Raito swallowed, blinked, and rushed to come up with a brilliant plan. Nothing came to mind.

"Ack! Zombie!" Raito pointed at Naomi Misora in mock horror his mouth dropping several feet, he was pressed for time and it was the best he could come up with. She merely raised her eyebrows and it looked as if L were resisting the urge to guffaw.

"We are already aware of the fact that Misora-san has decided to pull a Jesus." L motioned to the now irritated Naomi Misora, and then motioned for Raito sit. The fact that he wasn't jumping over Raito's immediate presence couldn't have been a good sign, things were farther along than they thought.

"I think it's cool that she came back from the dead it's like that movie 'Ghost' or something, hey maybe it's like the 'Sixth Sense' movie. Hey Naomi do you know you're dead?" Matsuda turned to look at Naomi who appeared to be holding her very thin temper in check, Raito was impressed but that didn't change the fact that her being in the same room as a very depressed L was not a good sign.

"I hate all of you, so very much." She sighed, taking a sip of her coffee, Raito wondered if her digestive system was functioning or not or whether zombies also worked by the 'black hole' system when it came to eating food.

"Well considering you just turned our lives into a science fiction novel I'd say the feeling is mutual." Raito smiled sitting down in order to better debate with the zombie, yes it was a good idea to bother Naomi Misora much more enjoyable since he could bother L at the same time.

"Oh and Kira somehow didn't already manage to destroy all knowledge of the space time continuum?"

"You just resent Kira because he killed your hubby."

"No I resent Kira not only because he killed my hubby but he killed me as well. Plus on top of that he's a complete asshole, so much so that I would be willing to spend time with L in order to make him suffer."

"You make it sound like such a horrible option."

"Oh don't pretend you're enjoying this either, speaking of which what the hell are you doing here?"

"Distracting you with meaningless questions like that one."

"Wait a minute, you bastard! I forgot what I was talking about."

"You see zombies have the attention spans of goldfish, you can't help but be distracted."

L sat with his usual dead pan watching the debate while simultaneously trying not to display his irritation.

"I am not a zombie for god's sake, I'm also not Jesus, not Lazarus, not the antichrist, or any other holy figure I've forgotten to mention!" She was practically screaming now and Raito couldn't help but smile.

"So then you're a vampire, but where on earth am I going to find silver? Quick L, we need to go to Little Italy before she destroys us all!"

"I'm not a goddamn vampire either!"

"You're just saying that, I can see the blood-lust in your eyes now! You're just waiting to eat us alive, you'll start with Matsuda and then move onto Aizawa…"

"Even if I was a vampire, which I'm not, I would never in my life attempt to eat Aizawa. That's disgusting, I can't even tell you how disgusting that is."

"Your face is disgusting."

"My what?"

"Your face."

"How does that even remotely make sense?"

"Your face makes sense!"

* * *

"Light, I think you've lost it. You just got thrown out of a grocery store because you were scaring the crazy cat lady." Ryuk hovered just behind his favorite apple-Nazi mortal, no doubt watching closely to see whether Light could indeed be entertaining without the Death Note on his side.

"I have not lost it! I have merely misplaced it temporarily along with my temper. But we are going to find it! Whatever it might be, I can't honestly remember what it is but we're going to find it goddammit! And then we will be kings of the grocery stores! YES WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!"

"See Light, this is what I meant when I said you lost it…"

"Come Ryuk, my apple addicted friend the world is our oyster!"

"Uh Light?"

"It's our oyster goddammit!"

**Author's note: I lied apparently, not going to explain Misa this chapter, maybe later. **

**Reviews/berating would be nice. **


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's note: As always I am sorry for any delays on my part no doubt caused by the numerous distractions that surround me, such as random one-shots and the like. That out of the way I hope to (maybe) explain Misa this chapter, most likely I won't but it's good to get it out there. **

**Thanks to readers, reviewers, beta, and others. Others being the people who don't read this because it doesn't involve Mello or Matt, oh those crazy Wammy Boys. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Again.**

Light Yagami was feeling a little better about himself, until he saw the she-demon prostitute walking down the street in front of him with eyes glowing a hellish red. Maybe the religious nuts were right; maybe he really did sell his soul to the devil! Well, that would explain a lot, mostly why he tolerated Ryuk but still he didn't feel like he had sold his soul. Not really.

"The shinigami already took my soul! You'll have to go somewhere else, can you take L's soul instead?"

The demon-whore walked closer, bloody paper still in hand, vacant expression on her face. Maybe she was the grim reaper, in a mini-skirt, he had always assumed Death was a man but it appeared that he was wrong (that or the angel of death liked drag a bit more than expected.)

"Light Yagami." She said suddenly, staring above his head, her eyes looking like a pair of glass marbles. Despite being scared out of his mind Light found himself to be exceedingly bored, as if she radiated pure tedium, just staring at her he felt his mind begin to wander. Speaking of which he just remembered that he hadn't slept in…

"I bought your soul on e-bay." She held up the blood stained paper, showing him the blocky script. Well it looked like his hand-writing, if he were a drunk toddler experiencing blood-loss. So clearly Ryuk had taken his soul, transferred it onto a piece of construction paper, and sold it on e-bay. THAT BASTARD!

"You sold my soul on e-bay Ryuk? I thought what we had was special!" Light felt like crying, no he felt like beating Ryuk to a pulp and then crying, he felt like listening to depressing music cutting his wrists beating up Ryuk and then bashing his head against a wall. Yes that sounded good.

"What? I didn't sell your soul, I never even took your soul, I'm not even sure you have a soul." Ryuk held up his hands in a mock-surrender, because clearly he had stolen Light's soul sometime when he was asleep and then signed onto his computer and proceeded to sell it!

"I have a soul, who said I didn't have a soul? Who told you that?"

"Well I kind of assumed you know, after you went on your killing spree, don't you have to be I don't know 'a good person' to have a soul?"

"WHAT? I am a good person, I am the goddamn best person in the universe! I am saving everyone's lives by being Kira, I am god!"

"I thought you were killing people…"

"THAT IS SAVING THEM DAMMIT!"

The demon-whore moved closer, catching Light unawares she wrapped her arms around him into a bear hug. Light began to scream, almost as loud and shrill as the moment when he had thought Ryuk was Michael Jackson come to rape him. That had been a terrifying moment.

"If you rape me I will ensure that you will be torn apart by rabid dogs, then by rabid squirrels, then hit by five semi-trucks, and eaten by a bear! Not just any bear, Yogi the bear will eat your heart out you little bitch! Do you hear me? YOGI BEAR!"

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Raito's 'Light Yagami's gone round the bend' sense was tingling, but he chose to ignore it, instead focusing on causing as much discomfort for L and irritation for Naomi Misora as possible. For the first time in a long time he was actually having fun, if only he could convince everyone to play strip poker again that would be even better.

"I am not a goddamn vampire! I'm not allergic to silver, I can walk in broad daylight, and I am not attracted to my food source." Naomi leaned forward her eyes blazing with fury, clearly she still had anger management issues but Raito wasn't complaining.

"But I saw you sparkling in sunlight, and you tried to kill me with a letter opener, only a vampire would be capable of that level of genius." The sparkling was a lie, only David Bowie could sparkle in direct sunlight, but she didn't need to know that.

"YOU WALKED AROUND SHIRTLESS WITH A HELPLESS WOMAN ON YOUR SHOULDER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! I think you're the one with an intelligence problem!"

L sighed, dropping five more sugar cubes into his tea looking for all the world like he was planning both of their demises as well as the excuses he would feed to the UN when they declared him a war criminal.

"You'd think so but no, clearly I am more intelligent than you as I actually succeeded in my endeavor whereas you just fail at everything you try."

"What did you succeed at? And what do you mean I fail at everything I try, I succeed at things! I succeed at a lot of things, look at the LABB case. I stopped him from lighting himself on fire!"

"I succeeded in annoying you. And please everyone knows that Beyond Birthday was just a failed cloning experiment that went haywire and you succeeded in nothing by killing him off."

"Don't take my one success from me you bastard!"

"So then you agree it is your one success."

"NO I DON'T! DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH!"

"If you two would please take your argument outside, we have important business to attend to here. Such as the catching of serial killers." L motioned towards the door in a grand gesture, causing both Naomi and Raito to break out into hysterics. Somewhere on L's temple, a vein began to throb.

"You hear that, he says they have important business to attend to. He couldn't catch Kira if his eyes were closed." Naomi could hardly speak through the laughter that bubbled up through her throat.

"He makes it sound so serious," Raito pointed at L and began his impersonation "Misora-san, your feminine appearance is nothing but a hindrance to our investigation. If Misora-san would please have a sex-change it would be much appreciated."

"Oh my god he is such a sexist bastard,"

"I know! Isn't it hilarious?"

"Watari, remind me to hire a hit man to kill both of them when this is all over." Muttered L under his breath, Raito caught sight of it and began to roll around on the floor in hysterics, yes Naomi Misora was definitely improving things.

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"Mom, I think Light's gone nuts." Commented Sayu during the commercial break of Ryuga Hideki's latest and greatest movie. Her mother simply eyed her warily and continued her task of cooking the meal for her family.

"No seriously, he left this morning for the grocery store and he hasn't been back. It's been like four hours, and last night he had a major meltdown and said something about a hooker stealing his soul…" Sayu could tell her mother wasn't paying attention, but she felt this was somewhat serious, serious enough to qualify as taking away from Ryuga Hideki's glorious hair-cut.

"Your brother's fine." The short answer was the standard one given by Sachiko Yagami when questioned about Light, after all she had stopped giving excuses years ago and now was just pleased that his eccentricity had turned into something half-way useful.

"Mom I think he saw a prostitute and sold his soul to her for some apples, I don't think that sounds fine."

"He's fine."

"But…"

"I SAID HE'S FINE!"

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"Wait so let me get this straight, you lost your soul." Light stared at the hooker trying to judge whether to be surprised, horrified, or just plain confused. Somehow the situation was not as easy to approach as being Kira, when you got down to it killing criminals was fairly straight forward, but talking to insane people was never easy.

"Yes, I looked everywhere for it, under the couch, behind the refrigerator, in my ex-boyfriend's apartment… It was nowhere to be found." She seemed to be staring straight through him, Light felt that if she had a soul she might have given a shrug.

"Do you even know what a soul looks like?"

Light Yagami was currently sitting in the middle of the sidewalk with a prostitute dressed as a rather frightening maid, the two of them face to face ignoring the throng of people who moved past him. Somewhere in the back of Light's head his dignity was rolling in its grave, but his dignity could go to hell, he had more important things to deal with than pride.

"No." The blunt answer caused Light to blink a few times and look towards Ryuk, who seemed to be caught in a bundle of laughs.

"So you bought my soul on e-bay instead?" The pieces were beginning to fit together, Misa Amane former model on the rise had lost her soul and had settled for his instead since it was convieniantly listed on e-bay.

"Not exactly."

Light nodded, ignoring the stare of a small child who pointed at him and said "Look mommy it's a hobo-man, can I give him a dollar?"

"Out of curiosity how much is my soul worth?" He figured it had to be pretty expensive, he was Kira after all there would be a lot of people who would be after his soul, or anything that belonged to him really.

"Fifty cents."

Light felt his sense of self-worth disappear beneath his fingertips.

"What?"

"Wait, it might have been forty nine cents."

"Are you telling me that my soul is only worth forty nine cents?"

"Yes."

"WHAT?"

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L wanted to kill everyone, but that was nothing new. L grew up in an orphanage looking like a raven with a serious back problem, meaning he had no friends whatsoever, so half of the time when he didn't want to kill someone he wished they'd just go commit suicide and get it over with already. The problem with wanting someone to die is they have to be living for it to work, otherwise it just defeats the whole purpose.

How does one go about killing Jesus, he just kept on coming back. Clearly crucifixion wasn't going to work, but what about the electric chair? Lethal injection? Death by toaster? There were so many options, and none of them sounded plausible. Damn Naomi Misora, she came in and ruined everything. L was so close, so very close, and then she just had to rise from the dead.

"Aren't we attempting to convict Light Yagami sometime today?"

There was a pause in the banter between the red-headed demon bent on ruining his case and the zombie who was currently making his life a living hell. Somehow their discussion had turned from sparkling vampires to the difference between maraschino cherries and actual cherries.

"I'm telling you they aren't real cherries, they're evil clones and they're taking over the world…"

"Light Yagami, dammit he's right. You distracted me!"

"You make it so easy, look over there what is that?" Nathanial pointed in the general direction of Matsuda.

"What? Where?"

"It's a distraction. See, easy? My god I hardly have to do anything at all."

"DON'T MOCK ME!"

"So then we're just going to let Kira go on at it, that's fine by me, hell I don't care." L sighed, his toes gripping at the seat of his chair watching as everyone continued to ignore him. Nathanial had a gift, it was obvious.

Actually it was a little too well done, Nathanial was trying too hard to keep Misora's attention far away from the subject of Yagami Light… Hmmmmmmm… Perhaps there was a way to kill Jesus after all, or at least to black mail him. But in the mean time he'd just have to sit and wait.

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"So then… you want me to marry you because you own my soul." Light felt his brain cells dying off one by one, dear god he needed a nap, he felt like crawling into the earth and sleeping for one thousand years only to wake up and find out that L had become some sort of a god and everyone had taken to worshipping him in cannibalistic revelries.

What? It was plausible, Light had nightmares about it all the time. Of course the other nightmare always involved him being raped by L in the middle of the night… and enjoying it. Frankly, he'd rather witness the cannibalistic revelries. But that was beside the point, the point was he was damn tired and somehow his soul was now the property of a role playing hooker.

"Yes." Her answer was curt as always, and he was left wondering again at the fact that she had lost her soul. It didn't seem like something you normally had to worry about losing, but there was definitely something missing from her. Perhaps she just had a terminal brain disease. Or maybe he was hallucinating, who knew how much sleep deprivation could affect him, clearly he wasn't getting any smarter.

"Why me, why not that guy?" Light pointed to the first man he could find, wishing with all his might to distract her and make that poor man's life miserable. "He looks healthy enough, probably sold his soul on e-bay as well."

Maybe the man was a good musician, maybe he was a nice person as well. Buy the she-demon some flowers on valentine's day, take her out to dinner every once in a while, remember their anniversary. Maybe he was the perfect boyfriend that would distract that girl's attention long enough for Light Yagami to disappear completely. And maybe pigs could fly, Light Yagami couldn't always be the optimist, sometimes he had to face reality.

And reality at the moment was that Light Yagami was completely and utterly screwed.

"Why would I want him?" She asked, if she had any emotion whatsoever he might have called her confused. At the moment all he wanted to call her was boring.

"Why not, he's young, he's sane, he's had sleep in the last twenty-four hours. That man has a lot going for him at the moment. And glorious as I am, I come with a lot of baggage." Light couldn't list any problems he had at the moment but he was sure some would come to mind eventually… No he was pretty damn well perfect, that was going to be a problem.

"But I want Light Yagami."

"Well maybe Light Yagami enjoys being a bachelor."

"I own Light Yagami's soul, he doesn't have a choice."

"Maybe Light Yagami thinks you should pick someone else!"

They stared at each other; golden eyes met crimson in a staring match to defeat all staring matches. Naturally Light lost and wound up blinking for a few seconds before resuming his debate whilst lacking most of his functioning brain.

"I just want to know what made you find me, how did you know my soul was going to be on e-bay?" How did she find out his darkest secret and use it against him? Who would have divulged such personal information? Who was he going to have to kill once he found another handy-dandy notebook?

"You don't remember me at all do you?"

"No, I thought we went over this… I have no idea who you are."

"I'm your fiancée."

Suddenly all the brain-cells in Light's mind had a simultaneous heart-attack.

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Sayu was loathe to mention again the fact that Light had been missing for more than several hours on a limited amount of sleep, but it was getting to be a bit much. "Do you think we should go look for him?"

"Light will come back soon, don't worry." Sachiko seemed hooked on the idea that avoiding the topic of Light Yagami was the best thing for the family's sanity as a whole, and most days she was right. But Sayu was really beginning to wonder if Light had been killed off because of his debt to the prostitute…

And then who would help her with her math homework?

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"Nathanial-kun, if you don't get out of my hotel room in five seconds I will put you on a rack and have you stuffed with nails." L was tired of playing nice, the guy was being a bastard and needed to pay. He was deliberately being distracting that way L could never get anything done, and if L wanted to arrest Light Yagami sometime in the near future then Nathanial would have to be out of the way until he could be dealt with later.

"Well you don't have to be so rude about it, you know I was going to leave eventually, dear god, you make it sound as if I were committing some heinous crime."

The thing was that Nathanial probably was committing some heinous crime that L hadn't even thought of yet.

"OUT!" L pointed to the door, Nathanial held up his hands in defeat walking away from the room so that L could finally get down to business.

As soon as the door slammed shut there was absolute silence in the room, not even Matsuda had the nerve to make some idiotic comment. L was left blinking wondering how he had managed to get Nathanial out of the room so easily, that was practically unheard of, which meant L had miscalculated something badly.

Giving Nathanial what he wanted was always a bad idea. Almost as bad of an idea as putting his successors in the same room and watching as they tried to eat each other alive, poor Y and Z had failed their tests at avoiding the temptation of homicide by screwdriver (but it was none the less very entertaining to watch.) When Nathanial got what he wanted it meant L was getting further off track, and if L was getting further off track then how in god's name would he ever preserve his reputation.

Goddamn that ginger-maniac, one of these days L was going to find him, keep him in a room for more than thirty minutes, and torture the information out of him. In the mean time there was Kira to think about, and while L knew Nathanial was connected to Kira, he had a pretty good feeling that he wasn't the first Kira. Besides with Lazarus herself on the task force there was no doubt that Kira was Light Yagami himself, which was something L had always known but the goddamn woman had to keep on taking victories from him.

Once again L had the ominous feeling that everyone was becoming more intelligent than him, if that were indeed possible. (Which it wasn't.)

"Back to capturing Kira," Read Light Yagami, "Any suggestions or should we just haul his ass in jail right away."

L felt like being blunt, hell why not just tell them? It was obvious to L, it was obvious to Naomi, Soichiro just needed to get over the fact that his son was a serial killer. Then everyone would hold hands and there'd be rainbows everyday and everyone would be fantastic.

Soichiro looked as if he were about to interrupt, thought better of it and remained silent. Good, very good, things were going exactly as planned. Just so long as some idiot didn't mess it up, he'd have to make sure Matsuda was locked in a closet somewhere.

"Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that… That bastard he planned this!" Naomi it appeared, just seemed to realize that she had been thoroughly duped by Nathanial. L felt the urge to hit something, preferably something that could feel pain.

Unfortunately he wasn't sure if zombies could feel pain, so clearly Naomi was out as far as experiments in sadism went. Matsuda however was free game at the next available opportunity.

"Obviously, Misora-san."

"That bastard!"

**Author's note: Well that explains Misa, makes no sense? Not physically possible? The dumbest plot twist ever to exist in fanfiction? Well what did you expect, seventeen chapters and three years the author is going to throw some random crap in the story. I envy those update ninjas that finish a piece within a year, but that just aint me. **

**Thank you to loyal if somewhat confused readers and reviewers. Because of finals this isn't beta'd, probably won't have a beta again until summer, so sit tight through the grammar errors. Not that you haven't already.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, same as last chapter and probably the next chapter unless I suddenly turn into Ohba and Obata… that would be weird.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note: I was just reminded in a review that I've forgotten to update, again. I should really start updating sooner but this is what you get when I don't write about thirty chapters in advance. That and reruns of Avatar the Last Airbender were just so tempting, along with the countless other fics I started to write. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, but hey look at last chapter I didn't own it then either. If I did own Death Note, it probably wouldn't even have a plot, knowing me it'd just be jokes about how Misa looks like a ho. **

Light Yagami wondered if this was payback for the Death Note, Ryuk had said there wasn't a price but perhaps Ryuk wasn't smart enough to understand karma. Or perhaps he was lying because it was funnier if Light didn't know he'd be stalked by a soulless blonde in a maid outfit. The gods were laughing, not just the gods of death either, they were all laughing at him.

Or maybe it was just a hallucination caused by lack of sleep and paranoia, all of it, the maid the soul it seemed extremely probable. But Light Yagami had the nagging feeling that he wasn't quite that lucky, that and he had applied that theory to Ryuk's appearance and Ryuk was still hanging around.

Whatever it was it appeared that it wanted marriage and was using blackmail to get it. You know, maybe Light didn't need a soul after all he hadn't even known he had a soul before the pseudo prostitute showed up.

"You know what keep my soul, I don't need it, hell I'm Kira if anyone can live without a soul I can."

"Wow I never thought Kira would admit his lack of morals." Ryuk managed a chuckle at Light's glare of imminent doom and destruction to all who dared oppose him.

"You know Ryuk, when I do become god of the new world I will find a way to castrate you."

"Er thank you?"

"You do know what castration is, don't you Ryuk?"

"Is that the thing that Sayu watches on television, you know the one with Ryuga what's his face?"

Light thought for a moment, wondering if soap operas were the equivalent of castration and sighed.

"Close enough."

The girl who called herself Misa Amane but was probably Mephistopheles in drag frowned, her blank boring brown eyes boring into his soul causing him to yawn. "So then, Light Yagami does not want his soul?"

Light wondered if he was making a giant mistake but then he was Light Yagami and he never made mistakes.

"Alright then, goodbye Light, Misa will see you as soon as you realize what a horrible mistake your making." She folded his soul into a tiny square, put it back in her pocket, stood up and began to walk away.

Light shrugged; as L would say the likelihood of his making a mistake was about 0.1%, lower than his chance of being Kira which as far as Light was concerned was a good percentage.

* * *

Sometimes Raito had the nagging feeling that he was born unlucky, because like the late Naomi Misora things just never turned out the way he wanted. He used to be smart, good looking, somewhat sane and now that had all gone down the drain and his life with it.

Naomi Misora was a problem, a huge giant enormous problem that Light wouldn't have time to appreciate as he would no doubt get himself stuck in jail. But of course if things went according to Light's original plan Misora would probably end up dead, but Raito wanted to save people and he wasn't sure if zombies counted for or against him. Really they should have given him more definitive guidelines, why couldn't they have written down 'in case of dead being resurrected do a, b, and c.'

It was almost worse than that time he had tried to be a part of the counterculture, or that time he thought he was a hippie-intellectual, he had gotten tired fast of spewing Descartes every five or ten seconds. That whole thing had just been embarrassing, even worse than the suicide phase, at least then he had been trying to accomplish something. Even if it was death it was better than being pretentious.

The thing was if Naomi Misora had the power to return from the grave who else did? What if Matsuda came back and started shooting him again? What if Mello came back with his mafia posse? What if his father came back in a fit of over protective parental rage? If this zombie thing spread beyond the blunt paranoid somewhat frustrated Naomi Misora things could get ugly fast.

And he thought his worst problem was L, oh no L was a piece of cake compared to zombies. What if the others started coming back, Raito had always assumed that Misa and Higuchi and whoever else had used the Death Note had gone mental fell apart and wound up circulating through Mu. But maybe he was wrong, maybe they would all start coming back bent on revenge. Because for some reason they all thought it was his fault, well maybe Raye Penber had a point or two but the others shouldn't have been complaining. Takada deserved what she got, and Mikami was a public menace and a danger to society.

Compared to them Light Yagami had been normal. Even compared to L's heirs Light Yagami had been relatively normal, god forbid any of them should come back. At least if someone had to pull a zombie, it was Naomi Misora who was probably the most stable of them all. She had gotten out of the business first, sure she had been killed off, but she still got out while the going was good. That said something for her intelligence as well as her sanity, he could live with Naomi Misora.

But was it even possible to kill a zombie, if she had taken the trouble of coming back from the dead why on earth would she go back to hell again? It wouldn't be that easy getting rid of her, and who knew what terrible consequences there would be. Look at the L thing; it would have been so much better keeping L alive because his little brats just weren't worth it. No better to keep her alive and distracted, the question was how would he keep her distracted enough to keep Light and himself out of prison.

L seemed like a dream filled with buttercups and daisies; at least L had the decency to stay dead once he was dead. Sure Raito regretted it every once in a while, when the rain slapped against his window, but he didn't become a zombie out of spite and that said something for the detective. Sure he had to put up with L pretending to be Jesus, L attempting to seduce him, L drugging his cereal, L throwing him in prison, L torturing him, but at least he didn't bother Raito _after_ he was dead. And he never gave the whole 'you are a murderer' speech that Near felt the need to pull. Compared with the mess he was in now L was… nice.

"Oh dear god what am I thinking, Raito he's an asshole you know this for god's sake keep your head in the right place and don't go thinking things that shouldn't be thought. He probably drugged you, again. And you know it too; hell you're better off with Misa the deranged puppy than with L. At least Misa didn't handcuff you to herself for months at a time and then peer over you while you were asleep like some ravenous bird."

Walking in the middle of Tokyo, talking to himself, Raito decided it was high time he talked to Light. They needed a plan, because it was going to be _they _in the future and not _he _because they were the same person and they had to be in the whole mess together. Raito couldn't afford Light getting the death penalty, or even getting thrown in prison and getting beat up by a man named Bubba. It was clear that they were both gonna go down with the ship if something wasn't done.

Besides it would be just Raito's luck that Light would go and get himself raped by a serial… rapist? Then he'd have to go to therapy or something, get all soft and blubbery, spill his heart out to L and then have lots of dirty sex. Then they'd get married and adopt a neglected orphan naming it either Bubbles or Mephistopheles. Then where would Raito be at the end of that mess? Bashing his head against a wall in sheer agony that his not-quite-self was getting laid by a man who resembled a starving panda?

He shuddered at the mere thought of it, yes, something would have to be done to prevent it. It was time to resort to drastic measures. Whether it was drag shows, seducing Matsuda, literal narcissism; by god he would do it. He'd do it if he had to die and come back as a zombie in order to do it, wait a minute that had already happened. Well, he'd do it again.

After all they were like brothers, Light was like an adorable if slightly insane and obsessive little brother. A little brother who had caused his life to be a living hell, who he cursed day in and day out, who he mocked without end. But hey, they all had stress relief. It was a love hate relationship, mostly hate but they didn't have much else to do.

He could always track down Misa…

Yes Light Yagami seemed like the best option.

* * *

Sayu Yagami had died and gone to heaven. Or the equivilant because ginger-David Bowie was standing on her doorstep in a duster with gorgeous brown eyes (although they almost looked red but hey who cared) and a crooked smile. Somewhere on earth she felt her jaw drop and drool come out of her mouth.

"Hi there, your window was locked so I decided to use the door for a change." The gorgeously thin pale red headed David Bowie raised a hand to point inside her humble house.

The dark circles under his eyes only caused Sayu to ponder what devastating problems kept her up at night, the trauma he must have endured. It was so romantic she wanted to die. Sayu mentally slapped herself before she began to drool.

_Now think Sayu, say something really really smart. Think like Light, that's what he's good for. Smart things…_

"Um, you're hair's red."

_DAMN!_

He peered at her through his dark lashes, "Why yes, yes it is. So, erm… You going to let me in or am I going to have to kick down the door?"

He shuffled towards the door, his graceful skinny legs shifting ever so carefully through the open door. His duster was of the darkest midnight, his boots glistening in the sunlight. It was as if Ryuga Hideki himself had sauntered up to her doorstep.

"Uhhhhhh…."

She couldn't think of anything to say, the words just tumbled in her brain trying to find room to be heard. (Raito mistook the silence for the social awkwardness that followed him whenever he tried to break into someone's house).

"Wait!"

He turned looking at her with gorgeous eyes that screamed 'I did not plan for this think of something brilliant to distract her!' Although Sayu didn't really see all the words running through his eyes she did notice their unusual coloring.

"Why are you breaking into my house?"

"Because I can." He replied.

That was it; Ginger-Bowie was the greatest thing since cracker jacks.

* * *

Raito was beginning to think he should have just broken the window with a rock. Operation 'Sneak in through the front door like a badass criminal' was not going according to plan. Funny, these things usually went much smoother in his imagination.

"You can sit here Ginger-Bowie." Sayu's grin was blinding, if he didn't know any better he'd think she was about to kill him or something. She pulled out Light's seat with an unusual amount of gusto.

Raito sat down awkwardly wondering if he really could spend the evening going by the name of 'Ginger-Bowie'. It meant that he didn't have to hand out his fake name, but it was nonetheless disconcerting. Really, he looked nothing like David Bowie.

"Thanks, so you're brother home?"

Might as well get to the point and leave as soon as physically possible.

"Oh Light, nah. He ran out of the house this morning screaming about hookers or something. I'm sure he'll be back soonish. Hey Ginger-Bowie, maybe you can tutor me in geometry while Light is gone." Here Sayu unleashed the blinding grin again, Raito winced wondering when she was going to take out the giant axe and start hacking him to pieces.

"Do you have any idea when he'll be back?" Raito hoped she did because he certainly did not want to spend the night waiting for him. Although that might be somewhat fun, sort of a James Bond type scene. All he really needed to do was find some cat and pet it for hours on end just waiting for a moment to strike.

Yes it was perfect, all he needed was the cat.

"Huh, uh no he never really said. But Light's boring, what about you Ginger-Bowie? How long are you here for? Do you need a place to stay? You can take my brother's room, he won't mind."

Raito couldn't remember Sayu being this nice before, mostly she had just ignored him unless she needed help with math or something. Weird.

"No thanks, there's too much ego in his room I wouldn't find anywhere to sit between the god complex and the narcissism."

"What?"

"He's got too much baggage up there."

"Oh." She frowned, puzzled, before she brightened and blurted something else out. "So where'd you get the cool jacket?"

Raito looked down at the jacket, "I use this coat to fight bears, I stole it from an experienced bear-fighting warrior and learned its secrets so that I too might fight bears. I trained for forty days in the forests, chopping down trees with only a herring. This jacket is my soul, my dark, cotton soul and without it I would just be another schmuck who rants about fighting bears. Does that answer your question?"

"Wow. I wish I could fight bears in the mountain."

Raito blinked his 'this situation is even weird for me' meter going off the charts.

"You actually believed that?"

"Of course, I mean where else would you get such a cool outfit?"

"You believe I fight bears in the forest with only my bare fists?"

"Sure. I mean Ginger-Bowie, you're just so cool just like Ryuga Hideki."

Raito didn't think Ryuga Hideki beat up bears in random forests. He also didn't remember his sister being this dumb. No one believed in his rambles, not even L, she didn't even notice that it was dripping with sarcasm. Everything he said was dripping with sarcasm, normally it just annoyed people, but Sayu didn't notice it at all.

"You think I'm cool." He asked slowly, wondering if she had been dropped on her head as a baby, he couldn't remember any such incident but…

She blushed, Raito felt alarm bells going off in the back of his head. His head was screaming, one part of him wanted to run and jump out the window and never come back. Another part thought he was mistaken and that she couldn't possibly be thinking what he thought she was thinking. And another part just wanted to bash his head against the table screaming 'why?'

No, he had to deal with this now or he'd never keep the nerve to deal with Light. Why was everything always so very difficult?

"So where are you from Ginger-Bowie?"

"The North Pole, I'm a renegade elf who spent too much time trying to be a terrorist rather than make cheap toys."

"That's so cool."

Clearly Sayu wasn't listening to a word he said. Teenage girls were so irritating, this is why humans should become asexual they wouldn't have to deal with the curse known as hormones.

* * *

"That's it, I can't take it anymore!" L slammed his coffee mug down on the table demanding the attention of everyone present. Good, it was about time everyone realized who was in charge. Not Nathanial, not Light, not Jesus/Zombie/Naomi Misora; no L was in charge goddammit and everyone was about to learn why.

Everyone stared at L blankly wondering just what L couldn't take anymore, the fact that they had no evidence, the fact that a zombie was currently running the task force, or the fact that Nathanial had practically tap danced out of his hotel room.

"Eh? But we aren't doing anything." Matsuda, captain obvious himself pointed this out with a raised finger the metaphorical light bulb dangling above his head blinking on and off with dim illumination.

"Matsuda-san, the only reason I put up with your idiocy is for my amusement."

"You mean justice right? Like the forces of justice? Oh, like superman where he has that palace of justice and they meet and hunt down bad guys and stuff…"

"No Matsuda-san, I meant my amusement. And guess what Matsuda-san?"

L turned to the poor fool giving his best impression of Light's 'touch me and you DIE!' face.

"You are no longer amusing me." L wished he had a gun, but he was fairly certain the look on his face was doing enough mental trauma for the moment. "So, that leaves us too options. You either learn how to juggle ducks on a unicycle while doing a handstand or you find some evidence for this case so we can actually get some work done!"

"Can I choose the unicycle option?"

L thought about it for five seconds, "No, good bye Matsuda-san. Don't come back unless you've solved the Kira case."

Matsuda gulped and made for a quick getaway, L smiled sweetly wondering who else he could essential kill off by wild goose chase. His black eyes drifted towards Naomi Misora who looked near suicide; perfect.

"Wait Matsuda-san, take Jesus-san with you."

Naomi looked up sharply, "I told you I'm not Jesus! And what do you mean take Jesus-san with you?"

"Eh, but don't you need Jesus-san here?"

Need, probably. Want, no.

"It is of my grand opinion that Jesus-san would be far more helpful to you on your search to find Kira and evidence." In other words they both needed to get the hell out of his life, things used to be so much easier before Kira showed up and started dancing all over his affairs like a monkey.

"So go off and have a grand adventure you too, good bye!" L gave a little wave sighing in relief when the door slammed behind the two idiots.

Suckers.

* * *

To partake in incest or not to partake in incest. That was the question.

Seeing as Sayu Yagami thought Raito was the ginger version of David Bowie getting her to fall in love with him would be a cinch, but it would also be disgusting. Raito wasn't much for incest, and he had a feeling that it would be considered just as immoral as murder.

Seducing his sister, even as Kira he'd never sunk quite _that _low. Sure he had killed thousands of people who may have deserved it more or less, but he had never seduced his sister. How would he live with himself afterwards? How would he face the shame and humiliation of knowing the fact that his sister thought he was a sexy beast and that his ribs were easily mistaken for a six pack. (It had happened before, some near sighted woman had seen him without a shirt and apparently without lenses he did look like quite a hunk of man meat.)

But the worst part was that she wouldn't even know, it'd be like sleeping with David Bowie and just when you think it was wonderful you realize that he was the Goblin King and stole your brother and fed you hallucinogenic fruit and to top it off those pants in the corner weren't pants at all they were tights. Sparkly, eighties, tights that were very tight on David Bowie's legs.

That's what it would be like. But worse. Much worse. Even worse than sleeping with L, or Misa, or both of them at the same time. Yes worse than that. He'd have this picture of Sayu stuck in a wheel chair in the back of his mind for all eternity with a sign above her head flashing 'YOU RAPED ME YOU MONSTER'.

Even Raito had his limits, his very clear, very noticeable limits. Besides he wasn't even sure he could have sex, there was that whole 'not able to grow a beard at the age of TWENTY THREE' that had to hinder how good he was in bed. Also being dead for thousands of years didn't help, he doubted zombie sex was very convincing.

And that was if he went through with it, which he wouldn't because he didn't want to and didn't have to. There had to be alternatives. Besides he wasn't here for Sayu, he was here for something else. But then he got distracted by the whole almost-semi-incest scenario and well it all went downhill from there didn't it.

Dear god that would put him on the same level as Mello of all people. Worse than Near.

He had to fix the situation quick or all hell would break loose.

"Sayu," He did not have the nerve for this…

"Yeah?" It was the face she had on when Ryuga Hideki blessed the television with his presence. Dear god, and here he thought he couldn't sink any lower. L had been low enough to impersonate (rather half hartedly) the pop star, but Raito didn't think he was _that_ bad.

"Erm…"

Just at that moment Light Yagami, Kira extrodinaire graced the house with his presence and Raito had a wonderful (awful) idea. An awfully wonderful idea.

"You see I'm Light's gay lover and I've come over to kidnap him, rape him, force him to marry me in a wedding dress, and overall completely humiliate him. Isn't that right my fluffykins?"

* * *

Naomi Misora hated L, no she loathed him, he was worse than Kira. It wasn't about revenge anymore, no she had to catch Kira first so she could rub it in his face. Jesus-san, who did he think he was? At least with the whole Beyond Birthday fiasco he had at least pretended to care, now he didn't even try.

"Alright Matsuda, we need a game plan." Naomi looked at her unfortunate partner who seemed rather distracted by the crowd of people passing through the streets. Sitting outside a café, drinking dark coffee, Naomi felt her eye twitched as Matsuda blinked back into reality.

"What?" He said in that moronic voice of his, she ignored it.

"We know Light Yagami is Kira, but we also know we have no evidence, we don't know how he kills, and we also know that he's a lot smarter than I give him credit for."

Damn right he was, it was unbelievable how difficult it was to incriminate a man even though he confessed to your face.

"We also know that Nathanial will try to intervene and that he's a lot smarter than I give him credit for, unfortunately I know your just as smart as I give you credit for. You got all that Matsuda?"

Matsuda blinked looking rather like a dejected puppy, "But I don't think Light can be Kira…"

Comment rejected.

"So this means our chances of catching him in the act legally are dim, but if we were to do something illegal are chances might improve slightly. Cameras won't work, they didn't work last time according to his majesty. I feel like death threats, you have a gun don't you?"

Naomi was beginning to get a wonderful (awful) idea. It was awfully wonderful. Like the weight gained after the holidays, you felt guilty and yet it was worth every pound.

"Well yes."

"Good, plan made. Tonight we're going fishing!"

"But Jesus-san, Kira isn't a fish…"

But Naomi had already sprinted off to stake out Light Yagami's house, Matsuda running behind her with eyes wide at the mention of both guns and fish trying to figure out what one had to do with the other and what they had to do with Kira. L was going to be so very jealous when he found out.

* * *

Light Yagami had the feeling his day couldn't get any worse, he was wrong. First Misora crashes into his room, then Nathanial shows up and carries her out, then a prostitute shows up demanding his hand in marriage by use of his soul, and then what do you know Nathanial shows up again claiming him for a gay lover. The day just couldn't get any better.

"So that's why he follows you around…" Ryuk began to laugh hysterically. Well, that did make sense, but the thing was if he was a rapist how did he know where Light lived and why hadn't he just kidnapped him instead of announcing his plans to his little sister, a shinigami, and to him.

Light had the feeling Nathanial wasn't that stupid, but it was still insulting as hell.

"What?" Light asked, wondering if he should call him up on the account of being called fluffykins or presumably being put in a wedding dress and being forced to take it in a rear by a skeleton who called himself impotent.

"Oh fluffykins I didn't want to tell you until you were ready for it, so you see Sayu I can't marry you or be the man who provides you children because I am _very _gay. And in love with your brother."

He added the last part on as if it was an afterthought; no one who was in love with Light just tacked it on as if it were a damn afterthought. Light was better than that, if he was going to be raped by a man half his weight he better at least show him some respect.

"WHAT?" Light used his 'you'll be dead just as soon as I can find a gutter to throw you in' voice. It was very dramatic.

"Um…" Said Sayu with a rather dejected look that should not have been on her face because no one sane could possibly have found Nathanial attractive. Not thinking about that, there were more important things to think about like the fact that Nathanial was in his house talking about kidnapping him.

Who knew, maybe he was serious. Maybe telling him his plan was just a distraction so Light would let his guard down. Light looked at him, trying to see the scheme boiling behind those muddy brown eyes. Very suspicious.

"Yes well, Light, sweety, can I see you in private?" Nathanial blinked innocently, a sickly grin on his pale face.

"Are you serious?"

"What?" Again that innocent look as if he had no idea what he was doing.

"You just threatened to rape me in a wedding dress and you think I'll go alone with you?"

Nathanial shrugged, "Now Light dearest, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Why did that sound like an unintentional innuendo?

"No thanks, I think I'll pass. Sayu, please throw him out of the house. I'm going to take a nap."

Light was done; he'd been up too long. He was going to sleep and no one was going to keep him up any longer or else they'd have hell to pay. Hell being the heart attack he'd give them.

* * *

Well, there was always the window. Nathanial got up from his seat, motioning for Sayu to remain seated so that he could leave his lover's house for another day. She looked up at him with mournful eyes, but really what did she expect him to say? That he was straight, that he was in love with her, like he said before incest was a line that he _refused_ to cross.

Wheelchair, Sayu in a wheelchair, Sayu in a bed in various states of undress… Ugh he was too old, too cynical, and too skinny for this kind of a thing. Why couldn't this sort of thing happen to L? Although knowing L he'd take full advantage of the situation just for kicks. Strike that, why couldn't this type of thing happen to zombiefied Naomi Misora? She deserved if anyone did. He certainly didn't deserve it. The whole thing was just so… awkward.

Sayu broke the silence with a cry of despair, which really sounded more like a melodramatic sigh. "You better get out Ginger-Bowie, before Light eats your head off…" She didn't mention anything about the 'literally' part.

Narcissism apparently rated lower on the 'ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING' meter than incest, that was always nice to know.

"Yes well, my love is grumpy. He hasn't slept in…" He didn't finish that sentence when he saw the horrified look Sayu was giving him. Well, what did he expect he was the one who brought it up in the first place. He coughed awkwardly. "I'll drop in later I suppose…"

He didn't even bother to say goodbye as he ran through the door, how embarrassing, of all the whoppers he came up with why did it have to be that one? And why did it have to work?

* * *

"Hey Jesus-san, I think I saw something!" Matsuda pointed at the front door of Light's house where Nathanial stepped out.

Naomi cursed, of course he'd be there again with the same brilliant plan she had. He must sleep there or something, just waiting for his chance to strike. He looked in her direction, his eyebrows raised, his shoulders shrugged and he walked away whistling; only to round back towards the window that lead to Light Yagami's room. The window she was going to use. Asshole.

"That would be a missed opportunity Matsuda." Grinding her teeth she thought of a new plan, a better plan. Fourteen year old girls were gullible enough, and who knows maybe Matsuda could actually pull something off for once in his life.

"On your feet Matsuda, have you ever done improv?"

"I took a tap dancing class once…"

"Close enough."

They approached the door with gusto, Naomi putting on her religious solicitor grin motioning for Matsuda to get a grip and do the same. She knocked three times, first there was a sob then the door opened.

"I don't care if you're in love with my brother Ginger-Bowie, I love you!" the fourteen year old girl cried out her eyes closed, tears streaming down her face. Finally she opened them and realized neither of them had red hair and neither of them resembled David Bowie in the slightest. She gulped.

There was an awkward silence. Finally Naomi got up the nerve to actually say something.

"Hi, I'm Jesus and this is my useless disciple Matsuda can we come in?"

* * *

Misa sat alone on the sidewalk pondering what to do next. She wasn't sure whether to call it pondering though, her thoughts were too clear to ponder. So she sat in the street weighing her options. She could look for her soul again, although she knew she wouldn't find it. She could look for Light, although she knew he wouldn't listen to her. She could go to L and incriminate Light, but in the end that's not what she wanted.

What a decision to make. And the soul, there was always that, even if he didn't know it yet Light craved the piece of paper in her possession. All it would really take was time. And then there were the tapes, the tapes she had sent out before she had remembered and before she had lost her soul. She'd go to prison, but Light would get her out because without her and Rem L was certain to live.

In the end Misa always had the upperhand, because everyone else forgot what side they were playing for in the first place. Her goals were simple so they were achieved, she would get Light because he had no other choice.

**Author's Note: Reviews would be nice, especially since I took forever to update. And yes incest jokes, I went there. **


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note: I feel rather like dubbing this the fic that never ends… Because it's so true and I feel as if it's eating me alive in an attempt to update and come up with the plot that doesn't exist. Anyway thanks to readers and reviewers, I'm surprised you guys haven't given up yet.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note**

Sayu was very angry, no not angry, she was incredibly pissed. After being rejected by the incredibly handsome Ginger-Bowie she had wanted to die, she had never realized how difficult it was to be in love. She had thought Ryuga Hideki was the thing that made the stars rise and set but no Ginger-Bowie was the god of love compared to him. So dark, so serious, so incredibly romantic, and so not available. It wasn't fair, she hadn't even asked him to date her or anything.

And of course he turned out to be in love with her brother, everyone was in love with Light. Even Light was in love with himself, to some extent at least. It just wasn't fair, couldn't he share at all, at least this one time. She wondered how Light would respond to her asking him to share Ginger-Bowie… Probably not well given his current mood.

Her current mood wasn't in the best of places either, especially considering that a woman who called herself Jesus was standing on her front porch.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Sayu asked, she didn't wait for a response and slammed the door instead. Good, one problem taken care of. Now if only Ginger-Bowie would come back to her and realize what a mistake he had made.

Loud knocking interrupted her wishful thinking, Sayu unthinkingly opened it again expecting Ginger-Bowie to leap off his stallion and whisk her off into the sunset like a gallant hero. "Oh Bowie-kun, you came back for me!"

Unfortunately it was still Jesus and her rather confused looking disciple. They both looked slightly alarmed by the repetition of David Bowie's name, but the woman was faster to recover.

"Thanks but neither of us is David Bowie." The woman pointed to herself and her companion as if to display their very not David Bowie looking appearances.

"I noticed." Sayu said rather bluntly, just wishing they would leave and quit trying to sell her religious pamphlets or whatever.

Suddenly the woman smiled, "But we can guarantee you'll never see Ginger-Bowie again if you don't let us through that door."

Now that grabbed Sayu's attention, "What?"

"That's right we have captured your precious… Ginger-Bowie and locked him in a place where you will never find him unless you allow us in your house." The pause between the word precious and Ginger-Bowie was one of awkwardness but Sayu hardly noticed.

"So you were the ones who made Ginger-Bowie say all those awful things! And now you've kidnapped him!" Sayu was onto their plan, that was why he had been acting so strangely poor Ginger-Bowie being forced onto his knees by these monsters because they were jealous of his love for her.

"… Yes. Now can we please step inside?" The woman named Jesus motioned for Sayu to step back from the door so that they could enter.

"You monsters! Our love will prevail over you, you'll see, Ginger-Bowie will come for me!"

"Sure, whatever, can you please just move a little to your left?"

"Him and me, we're like two fish in the sea! We can never be separated except by an oil spill! But even then we'd be rotting fish carcasses together!"

"… That's nice, you still aren't moving anywhere."

* * *

Light sat down on his bed closing his eyes and leaning back with a defeated sigh, "So Nathanial have you come to kill me?"

Light was feeling melodramatic, well he had a right after what he'd been through recently. He was just so damn tired of it all, and he had thought evading L was taxing oh no now his life was much worse. At least there was only one of L, L didn't come along with hookers or Nathanial or zombies or anything else. L was just… L and if you could deal with that much you generally were fine. Nathanial Lawilett on the other hand was an entirely different story.

"Not exactly," The man shrugged, and Light was surprised by the lack of sarcasm in the tone and how normal the words sounded. For once in his life it appeared that Nathanial was going to give him a straight answer.

"Ah you've come to lecture me then, I see. Well I'm flattered, I hope you know that. Because every time you barge into my room intent on ruining my life I get closer and closer to that fine line that separates me from suicide."

"No, I didn't come here to lecture you either."

"Then why, pray tell, did you bother coming at all?"

"I need your help actually." Nathanial sheepishly looked about the room, well that was certainly rich.

"You need help from the murdering psychopath who has the curious deformity of having no morals? Did I hear that right?"

"You see, that's where this whole conversation is going to get interesting."

"Oh? So there is a lecture I see. Then tell me oh benign prophet what is it I must learn?" Light held up his hands waiting for the divine light to pour down upon him. What could he say? It had been a bad week, and it just kept getting worse.

"Well you see, I've come here to talk to you about my flaws. I don't really know how to put this without it sounding either like an incredibly awkward innuendo or a failed attempt at understanding your adolescent woes. They both sound terrible, but really there isn't a normal way to put this."

"That's wonderful." Light muttered wondering when everyone would leave him alone so he could just get some sleep.

"Even saying it in my head I just hear the words, 'wow that sounds really gay' or 'do you think I'm Matsuda?' Besides it's not even like I understand the whole thing, I tell you the divine bureaucracy is so damn confusing no one can follow it. I used to think I understood it, kind of, every other day or so but now I don't get it at all and I'm rambling aren't I?"

"Yes, yes you are."

Nathanial sighed; he looked more exhausted than usual. Light wondered if that meant he was about to give a giant lecture on the necessity for Light to develop a moral compass.

"Hmm. I guess I might as well just say it."

"Might as well."

"It's not as if I have anything to lose."

"Nope."

"Except maybe my dignity."

"You have dignity looking like that?"

"We pseudo crack-addicts have mounds of dignity! You're just jealous."

"…"

They both looked at each other, Nathanial sighed once again and looked at his shoes. Light decided that it was going to be a long time before he said anything so he might as well get some sleep while he could.

* * *

"Light," Raito said playing the scenario over in his head. He thought he could say it right now, after at least fifteen minutes of mental revision it stopped sounding so dreadfully gay. Unfortunately his audience had fallen asleep.

"Light," He repeated this time with a nudge, the sleeping murderer swatted at the hand lightly and mumbled. "Wake up you narcissistic bastard I have to talk to you."

The mumbles returned this time slightly louder.

Well he might as well get it over with.

"My real name isn't Nathanial." There went one third of the explanation, which was unfortunately the easiest part.

"Really? I never would have guessed."

"Yes, well, good for you. But you see the interesting bit is what my real name is, aren't you curious?"

"No."

"Not even a little?"

"No."

"Slightly?"

"No."

"Well you're just a kill joy, aren't you?"

"Are you going to get to the point already?"

"I'm getting there…"

* * *

"Goddammit little girl, would you please just step out of the way already?" Screamed a very frustrated Naomi Misora at Sayu Yagami who still hadn't moved an inch and was rambling about something that sounded like 'ginger bowie' and 'soul-mate'.

"Hey… Jesus-san?" Matsuda asked her as he watched Naomi's rage build to unprecedented heights.

"What?" She snapped as she whipped her head around to glare at him.

"I was just wondering what the point of this was, I'm kind of confused and well… you're sort of scaring me…"

"I don't care if you're scared or too stupid to understand you incompetent bastard! All I've ever wanted was revenge, I don't care about Kira's morals or the police or L or Beyond Birthday they can all go to Hell as far as I'm concerned. All I want is Light Yagami's head on a nice silver platter. That's all I've ever asked for." Naomi said through gritted teeth.

"Wait, what do you want with my brother?" Asked Sayu suddenly, distracted from her romantic vision of Ginger Bowie.

"Yeah, why do you hate him so much Jesus-san?" asked Matsuda in response to Sayu's idiotic question, dear god they were beginning to feed off of each other.

"It's a very long story…" Naomi sighed, this was not as easy as she thought it was going to be. It wasn't even supremely difficult it was just ridiculously frustrating.

"Jesus-san I think we need to hear this story,"

"Yeah that's right, if we don't hear this story now then we'll never track down Ginger-Bowie."

Naomi felt the urge to facepalm once again wondering just who the hell Ginger-Bowie was.

* * *

"Well, I'm you."

Light groaned, he'd been hoping he could have slept through Nathnial's mini-lecture. He still wasn't entirely sure what the man was even attempting to say but clearly he had just made some irrelevant point and was waiting for an extremely tired Light to respond.

"…" replied Light with a glare that would have had L himself running for the nearest window.

"I'm you from the future."

Light wondered when he had started dreaming about campy eighties movies and why no one in his dream had started wearing ridiculous spandex yet. All the ridiculousness of being in an eighties films without any of the benefits.

"That's wonderful, what were you smoking this morning?"

"No, I'm serious. I'm you, from the future."

"Time machine?" Light asked as he rolled himself out of bed to get a better look at Nathanial.

"No, actually nothing that simple. How do I explain this?" He paused looking out the window as if for inspiration

"Drugs?" Light suggested.

"No, you see I thought that for a while too but it didn't add up. It's actually more of a paradox or an illusion in my head either could work. You see in the future you get killed by a ten year old, or was he fourteen… You know I never could tell…" Nathanial (Light from the future) trailed off as he tried to figure out whether future-Light's killer was ten or fourteen.

"…"

"No you do, you see after you kill L his apprentices show up and normally you could deal with them fine only you kind of become what's the word… Oh drunk on absolute power so you're not at your best game and they also have the powers of 'dumb luck' on their side. So you got shot to death in a warehouse by Matsuda and then killed by Ryuk."

"I thought you said I was killed by the ten year old…"

"Oh he planned the whole thing, had this dorky mask on and everything, but it really the death blow came from Ryuk's pen if you want to place the blame." Nathanial gave a heart-warming smile that sent shivers down Light's spine.

"…"

"Yes well what happened after that, now that's where things get really weird and confusing… I was dead and hanging around in limbo and all of the sudden I'm given this whole second chance deal. If I saved as many people as I killed I get a free pass out of Mu, or something to that effect. The other option is I get someone to understand me, in other words someone falls madly in love with me, and I get a free pass. Both are impossible. Anyway so I've been down here in this 'pseudo reality' for about two thousand five hundred some years twiddling my thumbs and trying (unsuccessfully) not to go insane."

"Is this what you do in your free time?" Light interrupted, Nathanial shrugged and ignored Light in order to continue.

"The best way to describe it is the movie Groundhog's Day meets Ghost and then has a love child that is known as my after-life. I've been here ignored by fairly everyone trying to save lives without anyone knowing and everything just repeats itself all the time until well about a couple weeks ago when threw a tennis ball at my head."

"…Are you trying to tell me that until that moment you didn't exist?"

"Essentially yes, to everyone here besides inanimate objects I was irrelevant. If you hadn't hit me with that tennis ball I probably wouldn't be talking to you, or rather I'd be talking to you and you wouldn't be hearing a word of it." Nathanial paused and then decided to elaborate, "You see I was following you throughout your life anyway, so I still would have been _here _in a sense it's just you wouldn't have noticed."

"You mean if I hadn't hit you with that tennis ball, then I would have never had to deal with you?"

"Yeah that's about right."

"Goddammit!" Light raged as he realized that Nathanial's very existence was his fault and could have been avoided if he simply hadn't played tennis with L, "Why is this my fault!"

"Well since I am _you, _you could also say it's your fault I exist in the first place and if you had never used that Death Note I probably wouldn't be here right now."

"What?"

Nathanial sighed and shook his head as if to show how very disappointed he was in Light's lack of ability to put the pieces together, "Well if you hadn't used the Death Note and were just a jerk I'd probably be in Heaven right now, or Hell who cares I wouldn't be here."

"I thought there were no consequences."

"There aren't this is just a side consequence of a side deal that has something to do with your using the Death Note."

"Ryuk you bastard you lied to me!"

"Yup, he did." Confirmed Nathanial, "But you can't really blame him I mean it is kind of funny."

"You can't be me! I refuse to be you!"

"Well I don't want to be you either but I think we just have to pool our resources and put up with each other, after all my survival depends on your survival and your survival depends on shutting up and listening to my advice."

"What?" Light was not only angry now he was confused as well, and still tired because he still hadn't gotten any sleep.

"Yeah, I used to be a gimpy bitch just like you but then I got over myself and look how much better I am now. I have no dignity, no friends, no relatives who even want to look at me, and it's all your fault!"

"My fault? How is it my fault, it's your life!"

"No, it's your life! I just got saddled with the afterlife and now I have to keep you living or all my plans are null!"

"Oh so this is my problem now?"

"Yeah, it is your problem because it's your life that's in danger. You're the one she's planning to kill and one of these days she's going to find herself a gun and not a dull letter opener!"

"Wait you mean Misora, you barged into my room because of Misora?" Light asked in disbelief wondering if he had indeed fallen asleep sometime and was just having a very bizarre dream. It was possible, made more sense than if it was reality.

"Well mostly yes, she's a bit of an unexpected problem that should be solved sometime this century."

"But… she's useless." Light said slowly trying to wrap his brain around the fact that his life was in danger from something that was probably a zombie.

"Mmmm well with a letter opener but say she gets a gun? She isn't afraid to use one you know, and she's only going to Ryuzaki because she wants to watch you (well us) suffer. If she gets too impatient with him though she may just try to kill us on her own again. Well you on her own she doesn't really know about me, anyway it would be really inconvenient."

Light looked at Nathanial's serious face, seeing those almost scarlet eyes and that mass of tangled red hair and decided that he had either gone insane and was creating fictional characters in his head or was sleeping.

"You know what Nathinal, I don't believe you. Get out of my house."

"Search your heart, you'll know it to be true."

"… Get out." Light pointed to the window where Nathanial would no doubt exit through in the most graceful of fashions.

"Oh that's right I forgot, you don't have a heart." Nathanial slapped his knee and laughed. Light felt his eye twitch as he continued to point towards the door.

"You aren't going to leave, are you?" Light asked while gritting his teeth.

"Nope. Not until you agree to help me."

"…Goddammit."

"I feel quite the same way." Nathanial said in an empathetic tone while clutching his hand over his heart.

"I don't think I've hated anyone quite as much as I hate you."

"That's wonderful!"

"Get out of my house!"

**Author's Note: Hooray an update after… how many months? Ah well, I'm sure you've all given up on me by now so here it is the next chapter. With believe it or not, a filler-less plot. Who would've believed it? (The semi-cliffhanger is because I value updating after a ridiculously long time as opposed to hurting my brain and cramming a fight scene into this chapter as well)**

**Reviews would be nice.**


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